{"id":687156,"date":"2026-01-10T17:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T17:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/687156\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T17:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T17:15:21","slug":"trump-doesnt-totally-rule-out-capturing-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/687156\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Doesn\u2019t Totally Rule Out \u2018Capturing\u2019 Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Days after deploying the U.S. military to Caracas to abduct Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, President Donald Trump did not totally rule out seizing Russian President Vladimir Putin in the same way.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a White House press conference following a gaffe-filled<\/a> meeting<\/a> with more than a dozen top U.S. oil executives, Trump was pressed by Fox News\u2019 Peter Doocy on whether he would act on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s suggestion to go after Putin just as he did the Venezuelan leader.<\/p>\n

\"TrumpVladimir Putin and Donald Trump shake hands at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on Aug. 15, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska. Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be necessary,\u201d Trump replied, ambiguously. \u201cI\u2019ve always had a great relationship with him.\u201d <\/p>\n

The 79-year-old president invited the Russian leader onto American soil for the first time in a decade in August<\/a>, where he failed to secure a deal that would end the war in Ukraine that is about to enter its fifth year. <\/p>\n

\"JournalistsJournalists ask questions as U.S. President Donald Trump hosts a meeting with US oil company executives in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 9, 2026. Brendan Smialowski\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

In reaction to the shocking nighttime raid on the home of the leader of a sovereign state on Jan. 3, Zelensky quipped that he hoped America would strike Russia in much the same way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, what can I say is, if you can do that with dictators, then the United States knows what to do next,\u201d Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"ZelenskyVolodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump hold a joint conference at Mar-a-Lago. Joe Raedle\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Since the illegal military raid on the South American nation, the Trump administration has made threats to invade or topple governments<\/a> in Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and to annex the Danish territory of Greenland by force if necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need international law,\u201d Trump said in a recent interview with The New York Times. He further claimed that the only thing that can stop his global interventions is \u201cMy own morality.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cMy own mind. It\u2019s the only thing that can stop me,\u201d the 79-year-old president said.<\/p>\n

\"NicolasNicol\u00e1s Maduro was arrested as part of Trump’s Venezuela operation. XNY\/Star Max\/GC Images <\/p>\n

The flexing of American military might has drawn widespread concern and condemnation from international allies. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said U.S. foreign policy is destroying the international order<\/a> and helping turn the world into a \u201cden of robbers,\u201d where powerful nations act with impunity. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s rambling answer to the question posed by Doocy on Friday included his \u201cdisappointment\u201d that the war in Ukraine had not been as easy to solve as the \u201ceight\u201d wars he claims to have already settled. <\/p>\n

\u201cI thought this would be in the middle of the pack or maybe one of the easier ones,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

\"USTrump shows off a lapel pin of himself during the press conference on Jan. 9. Saul Loeb\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

During the 2024 election campaign, Trump promised that he would be able to \u201csettle\u201d the war in Ukraine on \u201cday one.\u201d He has since walked back the statement, claiming he was being \u201ca little bit sarcastic.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added, however, that while the war drags on, the U.S. will continue to profit from it through the sale of arms to allied nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Biden gave $350 million to Ukraine to fight and we would never get that back\u2014although I did make a rare earth deal to get it back\u2014so we will be getting it back, but shouldn\u2019t have done that,” Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not losing any money, we\u2019re making a lot of money, I guess if you think of it, because\u2026 we\u2019re selling to them, to NATO, military equipment, we\u2019re getting full price and all of that. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a big deal to me. What is a big deal is stopping a war where 30,000 people are being killed every single month,\u201d Trump continued.<\/p>\n

The U.S. is currently attempting to push a 20-point peace plan that is largely aligned with Russian demands onto the Eastern European nation that was invaded by America\u2019s old adversary.<\/p>\n

Zelensky has accepted much of the deal in theory, but refuses to make territorial concessions to Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Days after deploying the U.S. military to Caracas to abduct Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, President Donald Trump did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3686,36173,12,332,189252,333,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-687156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-donald-j-trump","9":"tag-maga","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-trumpland","13":"tag-vladimir-putin","14":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115871935921851382","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}