Trump issues threat of sanctions, tariffs on Russia

I feel like he doesn't really understand most of what is happening but he just says the first thing that comes to mind when he hears stuff.

This is something happening in Europe as well though, you've probably noticed it if you follow Dutch politics. There are these people who just yell out stuff that sounds pretty good but once action has to be taken, they find out it's never as simple as they'd imagined it to be. The end result is they get nothing done and their disillusioned voters are too stubborn to admit that they were susceptible to populism.

Yes, he's been exhibiting clear signs of dementia since like 2016, and it's only progressed since then. The man isn't even competent enough to tie his shoes without adult supervision.

He needs to be in a nursing home, not running the country.

My understanding is that pressure on both Ukraine and Russia was basically part of the Trump administration's plan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Kellogg

In June 2024, Kellogg and Frederick H. Fleitz, who had also served on Trump's National Security Council staff, presented Trump with a detailed peace plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine.[30] The plan proposes a ceasefire on the current front lines, forcing both Russia and Ukraine into peace talks, and continued military aid to Ukraine if it agrees to a ceasefire and peace talks. If Russia did not also agree to a ceasefire and peace talks, the United States would increase arms supplies to Ukraine. Ukraine would not have to formally cede the occupied and annexed territories to Russia, but would postpone its plans for NATO membership for a longer period of time, and the territories currently under Russian occupation would remain under de facto Russian control. Kellogg and Fleitz said their main concern is that the war has devolved into attrition warfare that could wipe out an entire generation of young men in both countries.[31][32]

In November 2024, President-elect Trump selected Kellogg to be his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.[2]

Michael Kofman's has been skeptical of Trump's direction here, has said that he's likely to have problems getting Russia to go along with anything that isn't total capitulation for Ukraine, because the Kremlin thinks that it's going to win this militarily. He's also pointed out that Ukraine doesn't have any incentive to go along with something that puts it in a weaker position, which basically anything that Russia would accept, as things stand, would. And the war only stops if both sides feel that they're better off with it stopping.

The US has a finite amount of leverage here, unless it's willing to do something like put troops in, which it isn't willing to do.

EDIT: I also watched an analysis the other day from someone taking the position that Trump really views this in terms of scoring domestic political points --- like, he's the peacemaker president, and Biden is the incompetent war president, which is a theme that he's been campaigning on. If one agrees with that, he also wants the war ended quickly, which places even more impractical constraints on Rubio and similar.