MxM News

Quick Hit:

President Trump is done waiting on Putin. On Monday, he gave Russia 50 days to end the war in Ukraine or face 100% tariffs and sweeping secondary sanctions. It marks a sharp shift — combining economic pressure with a new NATO deal to rush U.S. weapons, including Patriot missiles, to the front lines.

Key Details:

• Speaking from the White House on Monday, Trump warned of 100% tariffs and sweeping secondary sanctions unless Putin agrees to a peace deal by the 50-day deadline. “We’re very, very unhappy,” Trump said, adding the penalties will hit not only Russia but any nation still trading with it.
• Trump also confirmed a NATO agreement to purchase U.S. weapons for immediate transfer to Ukraine, saying, “This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment… quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
• The announcement came as Russian forces claimed new ground in eastern Ukraine and launched record missile strikes. Ukrainian President Zelensky met with Trump’s envoy in Kyiv and thanked the president for “important signals of support.”

🚨 TRUMP JUST GAVE PUTIN AN ULTIMATUM:

50 DAYS to make a PEACE DEAL in Ukraine — or face ***100%*** TARIFFS. pic.twitter.com/CbX1cYRxd5

— MxM News (@mxmnews) July 14, 2025

Diving Deeper:

President Donald Trump on Monday made clear he’s done waiting. After months of warnings and diplomatic overtures to Moscow, the commander-in-chief delivered a direct ultimatum: end the war in Ukraine within 50 days or prepare for economic devastation. The deadline marks a dramatic shift in Trump’s posture — from seeking a deal to forcing one.

“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days — tariffs at about 100 percent,” Trump said during a press briefing with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House. He described the measures as “secondary tariffs,” aimed at punishing countries still doing business with Russia, and vowed to collapse the economic lifelines keeping Moscow afloat.

The pivot comes as part of a broader strategy recalibration. Since returning to office in January, Trump had sought to fulfill his campaign promise of ending the war “in 24 hours” through direct diplomacy with Putin. That olive branch has now been snapped. Sources close to the administration say Trump’s frustration has grown sharply in recent weeks, especially after a wave of deadly Russian strikes left hundreds of Ukrainian civilians dead or wounded in June.

Rather than continuing to negotiate, Trump is now using American economic power and NATO’s military coordination to tighten the screws. On Monday, he also confirmed a new deal with NATO that will see the alliance buy advanced U.S. weaponry — including the powerful Patriot missile defense systems — and distribute them directly to Ukraine. “Massive numbers,” Rutte emphasized. Trump added that the weapons would be deployed “quickly” and said the U.S. would lead in helping Ukraine repel the increasing onslaught.

“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment going to NATO… and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield,” Trump said.

The shift is not just military — it’s diplomatic. Trump’s special envoy, Gen. Keith Kellogg, landed in Kyiv Monday and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In a statement after the meeting, Zelensky described the talks as “productive” and said they covered joint weapons production and expanded cooperation with European partners. He also thanked Trump for the “important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries.”

Zelensky’s praise underscores how much the relationship has changed. Just months ago, Trump and his team had sharply criticized Zelensky during a February Oval Office meeting, sparking concerns in Kyiv that the White House was preparing to withdraw support. Now, those fears appear to be replaced with a renewed sense of partnership — one rooted in hard power.

The announcement follows Trump’s Sunday pledge to send additional Patriot systems to Ukraine, reversing earlier plans to pause certain military shipments. The White House made that shift in response to Russia’s relentless missile and drone assaults, which have overwhelmed Ukrainian defenses and pushed civilian casualties to a three-year high, according to the UN.

That urgency is not lost on Trump — who, after months of offering an exit ramp, now appears ready to close it off entirely.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Mariane Angela

Former State Department official Mike Benz raised serious concerns on Fox News Monday about the events surrounding the shooting in Butler, Pa., asking whether federal law enforcement played a more significant role than originally reported.

It’s been a year since the shooting of President Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, and while investigations have shed light on the incident, several critical questions remain unanswered. During an appearance on “The Will Cain Show,” Benz said he believes the lack of transparency in the case has led to many critical questions remaining unanswered.

“So the question is, if Crooks was cultivated or if he was being monitored or potentially interacted with by federal law enforcement agents who put him onto that? And I think that the total lack of transparency, it’s sort of defying the laws of surveillance state physics,” Benz said. “I think most people believe that if federal law enforcement were to get ahold of their phone, that pretty much everything could be scraped from it. You don’t know if, for example, in this case, he was communicating with a foreign government.”

Benz then raised concerns that the investigation into the Butler shooting could extend beyond the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), suggesting that agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA) might be involved in cracking encrypted communications.

WATCH:

“This, to me, may go beyond, you know, FBI, DHS. We know that the NSA is able to crack these sorts of things. And so it’s all very strange to me,” Benz said. “But, again, there’s another whistleblower report that I believe Josh Hawley’s whistleblower mentioned, which was that HSI [Homeland Security Investigation] agents kind of mysteriously replaced a fair number of Secret Service agents that day because Secret Service was said to be split between the NATO summit and Jill Biden being away.”

Benz referred to what he called a troubling series of events leading up to the Butler shooting.

“And that Secret Service had denied, I think, about 10 requests for additional security from the Trump campaign prior to the shooting. And so it is just a strange confluence of variables that just do not sit well for the American public,” Benz said. “And I think that there should be a sort of transparency task force so that these specific questions about HSI and the potential recruiting as an informant about the contents of the phone and the like can be answered.”

A report released Sept. 2024 uncovered whistleblower allegations about the Secret Service’s security failures during the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler. The office of Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri published the whistleblower report and revealed previously undisclosed claims about the DHS and Secret Service committing multiple failures.

Whistleblowers allege that the agent in charge of the Butler rally failed a key examination during federal training and was considered “low-caliber.” The report also said that the Secret Service’s intelligence units were absent from the rally, which contributed to communication failures between law enforcement agencies.

Senior U.S. Secret Service officials were aware of a “classified threat” to Trump’s life 10 days before the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt but failed to inform the agents protecting him. A report from the Government Accountability Office said Sunday that the intelligence, presented to Secret Service leadership, never reached the field team due to a “siloed practice for sharing classified information.”

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Fox News)