“I’d love to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it’s not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia. It was the G8,” Trump said from the Oval Office upon announcing new US reciprocal tariffs.
“I said, ‘What are you doing? You guys – all you’re talking about is Russia and they should be sitting at the table.’ And he then added, “I think Putin would love to be back.”
The G7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US. In 2014 these nations decided to expel Russia over the annexation of Crimea, but Moscow pointed out that Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to become part of the Russian Federation after a popular referendum.
Another highlight from the Oval Office press conference was when the president called on China and Russia to join the United States in agreeing to cut their enormous defense budgets in half. He said in the context of also urging the three major powers to restart nuclear arms control talks.
“One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia. And I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half.’ And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to,” Trump declared.
According to an Associated Press summary of the comments:
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump lamented the hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in rebuilding the nation’s nuclear deterrent and said he hopes to gain commitments from the U.S. adversaries to cut their own spending.
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
“We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more productive,” Trump continued.
Trump: "One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China, President Putin of Russia, and I want to say, 'let's cut our military budget in half.' And we can do that." pic.twitter.com/Z8osuKnHVg
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 13, 2025
Russia and the US have long had the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals, but China has in the last ten years been making strides to greatly bolster its strategic capabilities, which has alarmed the West. Trump warned that any future nuclear use by a global power is “going to be probably oblivion.”
Likely Moscow and Beijing will receive these words positively as an overture, especially on the nuclear front, but neither will actually heed Trump’s call to pledge a 50% reduction in defense spending – especially when Russia is at war in Ukraine and under US-EU sanctions. They might tell the Trump White House instead: ‘your move first’.
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(DCNF)—Retired NYPD Inspector Paul Mauro appeared on Fox Business Friday and predicted that the Trump administration will uncover unsettling truths about the FBI.
Trump on Thursday ordered the preservation of all relevant records for a potential corruption investigation. This, as he raised questions about the motivations and implications of the FBI’s actions after the agency suddenly discontinued its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. As the investigation into the FBI and its DEI shutdown begins, Mauro said that this could be just the start of a larger drama.
Federal law enforcement agencies and some of the local agencies, Mauro said, have decided that law enforcement is not their first priority.
“[But] social engineering is,” Mauro said.
“This is stuff that comes from the top when we had a rudderless executive, and very clearly it ends but I think this drama is just beginning, because I’m sure the Trump Administration has a good idea of what they see when they start turning the rocks over and it’s not going to be pretty.”
Mauro shed light on the situation and explained the significance of the preservation order.
“This is really developing into something that we didn’t see coming. The Trump administration has signaled that they were not going to be looking to engage in any lawfare or these sort of backwards-looking investigations,” Mauro said. “But this looks like they’re quite serious about it. When you put them on notice that they better not destroy any records, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to see some sort of an initiation of a probe here.”
The closure of the FBI‘s DEI unit occurred just days before Trump’s inauguration, which prompted accusations of lawfare. However, Mauro said that the probe is likely justified given the FBI’s recent track record.
“I’m not saying that it’s not justified, just to be clear. What I meant by that is the fact that they’re going to initiate a probe. I think it is almost certainly justified in light of the fact that if you look at the FBI’s history here over the last four years, we’ve had things like the arrival of Tren de Aragua,” Mauro said, referring to the Venezuelan-based criminal organization. “We haven’t had one federal case relative to that agency, that group that I’ve seen. You could have had conspiracy cases of all sorts there. They turned a blind eye to that. At the same time, you had Jewish students on campus who couldn’t even get to class.”
The FBI confirmed on Thursday the closure of its DEI office.
“In recent weeks, the FBI took steps to close the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), effective by December 2024,” an FBI spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Hill.
This decision comes amid escalating criticism of DEI initiatives, particularly in the wake of a terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. The incident resulted in the deaths of at least 15 individuals and injuries to dozens more, authorities reported.