Republican Lawmaker Warns Trump’s ‘Patience’ With Putin ‘Wearing Thin’

Is Russia’s leader on thin ice?

Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) said that President Trump’s “patience” with Russian President Vladimir Putin is “wearing thin” after the president had a call with the Russian leader late last week.

Crawford made the comment in response to a question during an appearance on Fox News:

“People keep falling out of buildings in Russia, Ukraine is still under attack. Will this war ever end? And will the president, our president, eventually run out of patience with Putin?” Fox News’s Trey Gowdy asked on “Sunday Night in America.”

“Well, I think, as the president demonstrated with Israel and Iran, he is not interested in starting wars. He’s interested in finishing them or ending them. He doesn’t want to see us in a state of war,” Crawford, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, responded.

Crawford also said that the president “doesn’t want us involved in those long-term type of issues, and he’s demonstrated leadership, and what that has done, I think, has propelled him back to the position that we should have been all along, and that is essentially the leader of the free world.”

“And President Trump has the initiative, people are listening to him. You look at the evidence of that in terms of the recent NATO conference, where we got the NATO assessment up to where it should be at 5 percent,” Crawford said, referring to commitments by members of NATO to raise their defense spending.

Watch:

Joined @GowdyAmerica to discuss the latest on Russia, Iran, and the @HouseIntel Committee's efforts to address the deep-seated analytic integrity issues throughout the Intelligence Community. pic.twitter.com/1wtQAAMhgb

— Rep. Rick Crawford (@RepRickCrawford) July 7, 2025

“That’s all under his leadership. And so, it would bode well for Vladimir Putin to take heed, because it sounds like President Trump’s patience [is] wearing thin,” he added.

Since his return to the White House, the president and his administration have pushed for an end to the war in Ukraine.

Trump recently expressed his disappoinment with the conversation he and Putin had and stated he didn’t make progress in stopping the war that has now gone on for more than three years.

“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin, because I don’t think he’s there. I’m just saying, I don’t think he’s looking to stop, and that’s too bad,” Trump said last Thursday.