The following is a lightly edited transcript of the July 10 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

 It appears to be dawning on President Trump that he will not be ending the Russia-Ukraine war in one day as he promised during the campaign. Trump’s frustration at Vladimir Putin is rising to the point where he even accused Putin of throwing “bullshit” at him. Trump even admitted that Putin’s word to him is “meaningless.”  All this comes as it’s now being reported that Putin is escalating the war against Ukraine, and that he’s brushing aside Trump’s anger about it. Add it all up and it sure looks like Trump has realized to his shock and horror that Putin is laughing at him. So now what? Is there any reason to believe Trump when he says he is now figured out what Putin’s game is? Will Trump keep arming Ukraine? Will Republicans finally demand that he do the right thing? We’re talking about all this with Mona Charen, policy editor at The Bulwark, who has been castigating Republicans for spinelessly going along with Trump’s pro-Putinism. Mona, thanks for coming on.

Mona Charen: Hi, Greg. Good to be with you.

Sargent: So we’re in this strange situation right now. Last week, the Trump administration paused some armed shipments to Ukraine. Then this week Trump reversed, confirming that armed shipments will continue. But then when asked by reporters who had made the initial decision to pause the shipments, Trump said he didn’t know. And then this exchange happened.

Reporter (audio voiceover): You said you weren’t sure who ordered the munitions halted to Ukraine. Have you since been able to figure that out?

Donald Trump (audio voiceover): Well, I haven’t thought about it because we’re looking at Ukraine right now and munitions. But I have … no, I have not gotten into it.

Reporter (audio voiceover): What does it say that such a big decision could be made inside your government without you knowing?

Trump (audio voicever): I would know. If a decision was made, I will know.

Sargent: So Mona, how is it conceivable that Trump doesn’t know who made this initial decision and how it was made, given how enormously consequential it could have been?

Charen: You’re not serious, right? We live in 2025 America and anything that ordinarily would be considered so outlandish as to be impossible is perfectly possible. Trump apparently does not know what goes on in his own administration. Not shocking. As for the point that you made about, Will Republicans pressure Trump to be more sensible about Russia, absolutely not. Their record on this is perfectly clear. Republicans still have a vestigial anti-Putin view. If you noticed when Lindsey Graham introduced legislation that would impose sanctions on Russia and tariffs on Russia—I guess it’s your favorite word, Mr. President, right? Look at what we proposed to do—it has something like 80 co-sponsors. So you can see that’s where the Republican majority in the Senate really is; obviously, that also includes many Democrats. But if Trump wakes up tomorrow morning and says that Putin has been getting a bad rap, or that he’s very, very impressed because Putin has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize, then they will all fall silent as they always do. So that’s the easy part to answer: The Republicans won’t do anything. They will be happy if Trump gets tougher on Putin, but they will never do anything to move the ball down the field.

Sargent: I want to ask you about that Senate bill in a bit—but first, let’s talk about Trump’s frustration with Putin, which is clearly growing. He said this week that he’s very unhappy with Putin and said, “we get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” So Mona, Trump has grown increasingly angry at Putin in recent weeks because Trump’s been surprised to discover that Putin is actually serious about eradicating Ukraine as a country entirely and is willing to keep killing Ukrainians to make that happen. On the other hand, something new does seem to have taken place here in some ways, pushing Trump a bit further. What’s your sense? What do you think happened there?

Charen: I think you’re giving Trump too much credit—believe it or not, I do think that. Because........

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