'25th Amendment remedies' mulled as Trump Fox interview goes off the rails

Donald Trump once again refused to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin and instead blamed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the destruction in his own country.

The U.S. president appeared Friday on Fox News host Brian Kilmeade's radio program, where he lamented that important cultural sites had been destroyed since Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022 – but he refused multiple opportunities to blame Putin for the devastation.

"You have a man who has let a country that had the more beautiful cities get demolished," Trump said, apparently referring to Zelenskyy, "had the most beautiful domes. Those domes are the most beautiful in the world."

Kilmeade stepped in to gently correct him, saying "that's Russia's fault, Mr. President," but Trump was undeterred.

"They're all demolished, a thousand-year-old domes," Trump continued, "and everything's demolished, it looks like a demolition site. It's sort of like Gaza. In fact, it's more – at least Gaza has a couple of buildings standing. This place, you take a look at demolition of so many of those cities, also, those people are killed, never to come back again. They're all killed."

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"But Mr. President, that's Vladimir Putin's fault, don't you agree?" Kilmeade interjected.

Apparently not, and Trump then attacked Zelenskyy for complaining that his country was shut out of talks in Saudi Arabia between U.S. and Russian officials on a peace deal to end the invasion that Trump wants conditioned on giving up perpetual control of his nation's resources and infrastructure.

"I get tired of listening to it, I tell you what," Trump responded. "I've seen it enough, and then he complains that he's not in a meeting that we're having with Saudi Arabia trying to intermediate peace. Well, he's been at meetings for three years with a very – uh, with a president [Joe Biden] who didn't know what the hell he was doing."

Critics were shocked and appalled that Trump was attacking Zelenskyy and refused to blame Putin for starting the war.

"He will not critize Putin," noted The Tennessee Holler account.

"If Brian Kilmeade had a soul left, you'd hear it leaving his body," said writer Gary Legum.

"At the risk of pointing out the obvious, Zelensky is negotiating with a very big card: 3 years of thwarting Putin's attempted conquest, at an immense cost to Russia which they cannot sustain," added Nicholas Grossman, international relations professor at the University of Illinois. "We can be confident Trump gets, at some level, how big that card is, because he keeps trying to weaken it."

"If Biden was this detached from our shared reality, Trump and co. would be talking about 25th amendment remedies," posted conservative writer Noah Rothman. "Oh, that's right: he was and they were."

"No matter how many chances he’s had, Donald Trump has never — ever — condemned Vladimir Putin," said the account Republicans Against Trump. "Putin’s puppet."

“'Oh please Mr President, please say it was Putin’s fault. Please. Pretty please?'” posted former GOP congressman Joe Walsh. "Bless your heart Kilmeade."