Putin “Is the Bad Guy”: Fox News Host Shuts Down Trump

Donald Trump’s position on Russia has become so prostrate that even Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade has been forced to urge sanity. 

Following the Trump administration’s decision to pause military aid to Ukraine, Kilmeade took to social media to issue a frank reminder—one that was much needed by the U.S. president.

“Can we all remember @KremlinRussia_E is the bad guy,” Kilmeade wrote on X Monday night, tagging Russian President Vladimir Putin’s account.

“They invaded—they kidnap kids—Whatever happens—Ukraine can not lose—eastern. Europe will be next,” Kilmeade added. 

The Fox News host, who once bent over backward to justify Trump’s request for “the kind of generals Hitler had,” has apparently broken with the president over his foreign policy, which even the Kremlin has said “largely coincides” with its vision. 

The Bulwark’s Tim Miller poked at Kilmeade on X, writing, “Maybe DM the secretary of defense.”

Trump has made escalating efforts to convince the American people of the very opposite: that Putin will “keep his word” on a peace deal, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy isn’t interested in peace at all.  And this is in no way the beginning of Trump’s smear campaign: He has long made efforts to undermine Zelenskiy and push false narratives about Ukraine. 

In fact, Trump’s first impeachment hinged on his allegedly pressuring Zelenskiy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. How exactly did he pressure Zelenskiy to do what he wanted? He withheld military aid. Did it work? Not at all. 

Trump’s efforts to recast the villain in this story seem to be working. A recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that the percentage of Americans who viewed Russia as “the enemy” had dropped from 64 percent in 2023 to 34 percent. 

Surprise, surprise: Vice President JD Vance isn’t taking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seriously.

During an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity Monday night, Donald Trump’s sniveling sidekick made light of Russia’s ongoing incursion into Ukrainian territory, following the Trump administration’s decision to pause deliveries of military aid to the war-torn country.

At one point, Sean Hannity said that President Joe Biden’s administration had “called [Vladimir] Putin every name in the book.”

“And he still invaded anyway!” Vance interjected, rushing to get the words out before letting out a breathy laugh at his own observation.

“OK, he still invaded anyway,” Hannity replied. “Well remember, it depends if it’s a ‘minor incursion.’”

Hannity was referring to Biden’s gaffe calling a potential invasion into Ukraine a “minor incursion” in 2022. Meanwhile, Trump had cheerleaded Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, claiming that Crimeans “would rather be with Russia,” but it seems that conservatives choose not to remember that nearly as often.

Vance’s joke isn’t so much offensive as it is stupid, considering that with Trump in charge, Russia intends to continue to pillage Ukraine. Only now, the U.S. intends to rubber-stamp it.

During the interview, Vance defended the Trump administration’s decision to pause deliveries of military aid to Ukraine, and claimed that Europeans were doing a “disservice” to Ukrainians by continuing to fund Kyiv’s efforts to defend itself from Russian aggression.

The president’s first speech to a joint session of Congress will take place Tuesday at 9:00 p.m., but some key members of the intended audience won’t be in attendance.

A growing faction of Democrats are planning to boycott Donald Trump’s unofficial State of the Union address in protest against the administration’s violent agenda, Elon Musk’s apparent takeover of the federal government, and Trump’s abysmal negotiations with Ukraine.

Washington Senator Patty Murray announced Monday that she wouldn’t be in the crowd during Trump’s first major speech to the legislative branch, posting on X that the true state of the union is that Trump is “spitting in the face of the law.”

“He is letting an unelected billionaire fire cancer researchers and wreck federal agencies like the Social Security Administration at will,” Murray wrote.

Murray has been joined by Senators Ron Wyden, Chris Murphy, and Don Beyer, all of whom are planning to skip.

Members from the House are also joining in on the protest. Colorado Representative Diana DeGette announced Tuesday morning she would also be staying away from the speech. Speaking with NBC affiliate 9 News, DeGette said that the Trump administration’s “barrage of illegal attacks against public servants and vulnerable groups, have disgraced and embarrassed our country.”

The plan flies in the face of the silent protest that top Democrats in Congress have tried to organize. In a letter issued Monday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries urged his party to make a “strong” and “dignified” presence at Trump’s speech, rather than run away.

“It is important to have a strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber,” Jeffries wrote. “The House as an institution belongs to the American people, and as their representatives, we will not be run off the block or bullied.”

While Donald Trump took questions from the press at the White House Monday afternoon, the stock market plummeted, and Fox News displayed a graphic showing the dip while carrying Trump’s remarks live. 

Trump told reporters that he planned to enact his long-threatened 25 percent tariffs against goods from Mexico and Canada and 10 percent tariffs against goods from China starting Tuesday, to which the Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 did not respond well. Fox News, along with their usual breaking news chyron, also had the Dow index displayed while Trump was speaking, showing a fall of more than 650 points.

Trump’s remarks were preceded by his early afternoon announcement on Truth Social addressed to “the Great Farmers of the United States.” 

“Get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold INSIDE of the United States. Tariffs will go on external product on April 2nd. Have fun!” Trump posted. But it seems that there was little fun to be had in the stock market based on the fears of higher prices and other  negative ripple effects.

This, coupled with fewer food imports from three of America’s largest trading partners, will ultimately lead to higher food prices across the country, something that Trump campaigned against during the 2024 election and that ultimately played a factor in his victory. Plus, the prices of various other goods, from cars to electronics to over-the-counter pills, also will likely see a sharp increase. 

Don’t expect Trump to take responsibility for a sinking stock market or higher prices, though. He’s already saying that rising inflation isn’t his fault and has tacitly admitted that his tariffs will cause prices to go up. His administration is even discussing how to juke economic numbers to try and hide how badly Trump’s radical changes, including those from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, are hurting the economy. It looks like our wallets are about to have a rough spring.

Donald Trump is scheduled to speak with several Cabinet members Monday regarding Ukraine policy and the possibility of ending military assistance to the beleaguered Eastern European nation.

That could include withholding equipment, such as ammunition and radars, as well as limiting the amount of intelligence shared with the Ukrainian military, according to a U.S. official who spoke with The Washington Post.

The meeting will involve Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, the last of whom met with Russian officials last month regarding a potential peace deal.

During a White House press conference earlier Monday, Trump repeatedly ducked reporters’ questions as to whether his administration’s actions had aligned U.S. policy with Moscow. Rather than saying “no,” Trump went on a breathy rant claiming that the war never would have happened if he was in office at the onset of the conflict.

“I wanna see it end fast. I don’t want to see this go on for years and years. Now, President Zelenskiy supposedly made a statement today in AP—I’m not a big fan of AP, so maybe it was an incorrect statement—but he said he thinks the war is gonna go on for a long time, uh, and he better not be right about that, that’s all I’m saying,” Trump said.

Russian forces crossed the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022, which Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to justify by falsely claiming that he needed to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and Russia opened discussions at a meeting in Saudi Arabia last month, seeking a conclusion to the three-year war, but the assembly conspicuously excluded Ukrainian leadership.

When asked whether he had discussed the ending of military aid to Ukraine, however, Trump said that “things” were happening “as we speak.”

“I haven’t even talked about that right now,” Trump told reporters. “I mean, right now, we’ll see what happens. A lot of things are happening right now, literally as we speak.”

On Friday, Trump and JD Vance overtly showed where their loyalties lie: Seated in front of the press in the White House, the pair refused to let Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speak, allowed a conservative reporter to mock Zelenskiy’s wartime attire, and effectively leveraged the critical meeting for measly political gain by defending Putin at the cost of denigrating former American officials. And in doing so, they challenged America’s strongest alliances while ceding the world stage to its adversaries.