President Trump, at an event in the Oval Office, took several questions about his phone call earlier Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Asked if he asked Putin to meet over Ukraine, Trump said responded: “Yeah, of course I did. I talked to him about it. I said, ‘When are we going to end this, Vladimir?'”
“I had known for a long time now,” Trump continued. “I said, ‘When are we going to end this bloodshed, this this bloodbath?’ It’s a bloodbath. And, I do believe he wants to end it.”
Trump was pressed on if he stood by his earlier comments that nothing would happen until he and Putin got together, given no major breakthroughs as a result of Monday’s hourslong call.
“I think something’s going to happen,” Trump said. “It’s a very, very big egos involved, I tell you, big egos involved. But I think something’s going to happen. And if it doesn’t, I just back away and they’re going to have to keep going again. This is a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.”
