Trump Makes Jarring Confession on Russia-Ukraine “Peace Deal”

Trump thinks that Russia not completely colonizing Ukraine is a concession on the path to peace.

“Mr. President … what concessions has Russia offered up thus far to get to the point where you’re closer to peace?” a reporter asked Trump, during a meeting with the Norwegian prime minister in the Oval Office on Thursday.

“Stopping the war. Stopping taking the whole country. Pretty big concession,” Trump replied dryly.

Promising to not invade a neighboring country is not a concession, especially not when you’ve already bombed said neighbor for over two years. Just hours before, Trump had resorted to Truth Social to beg Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop bombing Ukraine, after the worst assault on Kyiv in months.

The Trump administration continues to reveal that the so-called peace deal it wants to broker between Russia and Ukraine is just a way to force the latter to give up more land and resources. It’s not a deal, it’s not a ceasefire, it’s a shakedown.

Russian propagandists were practically giddy as they celebrated top U.S. officials—including Donald Trump—bending to the Kremlin’s demands.

“No one could have imagined we would live to see the day where the correct answer about to whom Crimea belongs would come from the president of the United States, and he will not only give it but will also teach the president of Ukraine what this correct answer is,” said business daily Kommersant writer Sergey Strokan on the Russian broadcast program 60 Minutes Wednesday night.

“April 23, 2025, can be confidently written into textbooks on modern history as a special date,” Strokan said. “It changed many things.”

State Secretary Marco Rubio spontaneously pulled out of Ukraine peace talks Wednesday after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy plainly rejected a U.S.-backed deal that would permanently hand over Crimea, an internationally recognized portion of Ukraine that has been under Russian occupation since 2014, to Russia.

“Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea,” Zelenskiy said at a press conference in Kyiv Tuesday. “There’s nothing to talk about here. This is against our Constitution.”

But Trump’s response to the land debate was seen as a massive win for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies. In a post on Truth Social Wednesday, Trump claimed that the territory was “lost years ago” and “and is not even a point of discussion” in the peace talks. Trump further threatened that Zelenskiy should give up Crimea or risk “losing the whole Country,” and said that the Ukrainian leader’s rejection of the peace deal would “do nothing but prolong the ‘killing field.’”

The Russian talking heads interpreted that message in just one way: that the U.S. had rescinded its international military dominance and aligned itself with Moscow, practically signing Ukraine’s death warrant and that of Europe’s protection along with it.

“The United States may withdraw its entire military contingent from Europe and remove American tactical nuclear weapons from the European NATO bases,” predicted military expert Igor Korotchenko. “We will see a totally new political reality, when Europe will be left one-on-one with Russia.”

Another state-backed TV show, The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, saw its host “prancing and grinning” as the U.S. cowered in submission, according to The Daily Beast.

Allowing Russia to keep Crimea is an incredible reversal of long-standing U.S. policy—and comes as a new approach for the Trump administration. In 2018, Trump’s former State Secretary Mike Pompeo called Russia to end its annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.

But in a White House press conference Thursday, Trump couldn’t muster a coherent explanation for the switch-up, only further deflecting responsibility for the ongoing conflict.

“This isn’t my war. This is Biden’s war,” Trump said. Earlier on Thursday—nearly 100 days into his second term—Trump had resorted to begging Putin to end the violence.

During the press briefing, Trump further claimed that Russia had offered major concessions in a possible peace deal. Those concessions, however, amounted to “stopping taking the whole country.”

“Pretty big concession,” Trump added.

Donald Trump is targeting a massive Democratic fundraising tool in an upcoming presidential memorandum banning foreign donations in U.S. elections, according to reporting from Politico.

Donations platform ActBlue, which almost all Democratic candidates use in both primary and general elections, has often been criticized by Republicans—without evidence—for what they see as fraudulent donations from foreign actors. Republican Representative Bryan Steil ordered ActBlue to turn over its records in October and found nothing of the sort. There was actually evidence of ActBlue’s new program for automatic rejections of donations from foreign nationals.

ActBlue raised $400 million in the first three months of 2025, and Trump’s order would effectively choke off donations to the Democratic Party.

“Nothing will deter or interrupt ActBlue’s mission and work to enable millions of Americans to participate in our democracy. There is an ongoing and persistent effort to weaken the confidence of the American people in what’s possible. This is the next version of ‘the big lie,’” ActBlue CEO and President Regina Wallace-Jones wrote in an email on Wednesday. “More than 28 million Americans participate in our democracy through our platform. We are not going to sit back idly and let their voices be silenced.… It is time for us to unify—as Americans—and create a powerful blue wall to fight against the creeping despotism of the Right, and to win back power in Washington D.C and the halls of government across the country.”

Trump’s presidential memorandum has yet to be released.

For anyone still doubting whether Donald Trump is contemplating a third term, consider that the president is currently selling “Trump 2028” hats.

The red caps were spotted on the online Trump store retailing for $50 a pop.

“Make a statement with this Made in America Trump 2028 hat. Fully embroidered with a snap closure in the back, this will become your new go-to hat,” the item description reads.

Trump has been continually suggesting the idea of running for a third term since he was on the campaign trail last year, but last month, the president insisted he was actually “not joking” about staying in power.  

During a phone call with NBC News’s Kristin Welker, the president said that he was actually very serious about potentially circumventing the Constitution in order to lead the country for another four years after his second term ends.

“No, no I’m not joking. I’m not joking,” the president said during a call in which he agreed with Welker that one such plan to keep him in office involved having Vice President JD Vance front the next Republican presidential ticket with Trump as his number two—roles that they would then switch once back in office.

“That’s one. But there are others too. There are others,” Trump said, refusing to clarify what the other plans are.

Another seemingly far-fetched idea, which involves altering the Constitution in order to keep Trump in power, would require the consent of most of the country. But that’s only if the president intends to lean on traditional methods, such as an election, to stay in the Oval Office.

As outlined in Article 5 of the Constitution, any such change requires at least two-thirds of the Senate and the House to agree on the modification, with that change then requiring ratification by a minimum of three-quarters of states in the nation.

A second approach to repealing the term-limiting amendment could be via a Constitutional Convention, though two-thirds of states would need to support the motion to have one at all, and any proposed changes to an amendment would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states.

A federal judge ruled Thursday to block parts of Donald Trump’s executive order last month attempting to overhaul elections and voting processes. 

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted a preliminary injunction to halt several of the order’s initiatives, including requiring proof of citizenship on voter registration forms and requiring people on public assistance to have their citizenship checked before they can register to vote. 

Late last month, Democratic Party–affiliated organizations, as well as several other nonprofit groups, filed two lawsuits seeking to halt the executive order, calling it unconstitutional. Kollar-Kotelly, a Clinton appointee, left other parts of the order intact, such as narrowing mail ballot deadlines.

Trump claimed in the order that the U.S. “fails to enforce basic and necessary election protections,” unlike other countries. 

“Many American elections now feature mass voting by mail, with many officials accepting ballots without postmarks or those received well after Election Day,” the order states. 

The ruling temporarily puts a roadblock against one right-wing attempt to disenfranchise voters. But another attack on voting rights, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, also seeks to require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Unlike Trump’s order, though, the SAVE Act goes even further in potentially making it harder for some married women to vote, as it would require the name on a registration form to match that on proof of citizenship documents, such as birth certificates. That bill has already passed the Republican-controlled House, aided by four Democratic votes.  

Republicans have long attacked the legitimacy of any election in which they have not performed well, led by Trump. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Trump attacked the electoral process as “rigged,” pushing lies that “noncitizen voters” would skew the results. These claims seemed to miraculously disappear after Trump won, but conservatives are determined to right this imagined travesty. 

This story has been updated.