An MS NOW co-host struggled to hold back laughter while reporting on Donald Trump’s historically improbable claim that Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants the country he’s been bombing for years to “succeed.”
“Let’s just take that comment there from President Trump. No, I don’t think Russian President Vladimir Putin is invested in Ukraine’s success,” Jonathan Lemire told Morning Joe viewers Monday.
“He’s the one who invaded in the first place,” he added, stifling a laugh. “He’s the one still with aims to conquer it.”
Lemire was responding to footage from a press conference Sunday at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss proposals for an end to Russia’s bloody war on Ukraine, launched by Putin in February 2022.
Conceding that “one or two very thorny issues” have yet to be resolved in those talks, Trump raised eyebrows by telling reporters that “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” and that Putin himself is “very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding.”
Lemire was not alone in finding those sentiments bitterly amusing, with Zelensky himself also apparently stifling a laugh as he listened to his U.S. counterpart speak.
Almost four years of war in Ukraine has witnessed one of Europe’s largest displacement crises since World War II, with more than 6.9 million Ukrainians fleeing abroad and 3.7 million internally displaced.
Civilians have suffered extensive harm, with more than 42,000 verified casualties including more than 2,500 children, alongside constant attacks on essential services that disrupt access to food, water, health care and education.
Destruction of physical infrastructure and economic capacity has proven staggering, with damages running upward of $170 billion and international assessments projecting costs well above $400 billion over the coming decade to rebuild housing, energy, transportation, and social services.
“[Zelensky] wants to make it clear, as do the Europeans, to President Trump and those around President Trump, that the problem is not Ukraine. The problem is Russia,” Lemire’s co-host Katy Kay said.
“President Trump, I don’t know what he means when he says that Russia is very keen for Ukraine to succeed, unless Russia is keen for Ukraine to succeed under Russia’s control, which is the way that Vladimir Putin would like it to be,” she said.
