WASHINGTON — President Trump lit into a Polish journalist Wednesday for asking about his alleged lack of punitive actions against Russian President Vladimir Putin — huffing at one point that “you ought to get yourself a new job.”
“You’ve stressed many times your frustration and disappointment with Putin, but there’s no action since you took your office,” the reporter told Trump as he hosted the visiting Polish President Karol Nawrocki in the Oval Office.
“How do you know there’s no action? Really?” the president exclaimed before asking: “Wait, wait, who are you with?”
“I’m with Polish media,” the reporter replied.
“Ok. How do you know there’s no action?” Trump charged.
“Would you say that putting secondary sanctions on India, the largest purchaser [of Russian oil] — outside of China, they’re almost equal — would you say there was no action? That cost hundreds of billions of dollars to Russia. You call that no action?” the president bristled.
“And I haven’t done phase two yet or phase three. But when you say there’s no action, I think you ought to get yourself a new job. Because if you remember two weeks ago, I did, I said, ‘If India buys, India’s got big problems,’ and that’s what happened. So don’t tell me about that.”
Trump spoke as his two-week deadline for Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to meet approaches this coming Friday — following Putin’s Aug. 15 visit with Trump in Alaska.
Trump on Aug. 22 threatened “massive” sanctions and tariffs if Putin and Zelensky fail to meet.
“I’ll see whose fault it is. If there are reasons why, I would understand that,” he said at the time.
“Then I’m going to make a decision as to what we do. And it’s going to be a very important decision. And that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs, or both, or do we do nothing and say, ‘It’s your fight’?”
Trump has remained coy about his next steps as Putin visited Beijing this week for elaborate military celebrations of the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.
“I have no message to President Putin,” Trump said Wednesday. “He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or the other. Whatever his decision is, we’ll either be happy about it or unhappy. And if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen.
