What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to give himself an excuse for not punishing the Putin regime for its encroachment over NATO territory.

Where Russia is concerned, most of Trump's second term has been an extension of the first. Trump, who is personally and politically indebted to the Putin regime in ways previously unthinkable for an American president, has occasionally made feints at independence, only to retreat before actually doing anything. 

That pattern repeated itself today. Earlier this week, Russian drones violated the airspace of Poland, a NATO ally—the first time in the 76 years of the alliance's existence that a hostile nation has done so. Trump waited 14 hours before responding, and then only in the form of a social media post—and not even with a threat of consequences, but a question: "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones?"

Almost immediately afterwards, Trump walked back even that mildly critical tweet, saying without any evidence that Russia's incursion (which shut down all Polish air traffic for most of a day) "could have been a mistake." (It was not.)

But even then, Trump administration officials were willing to rattle the saber a little with talk of increasing sanctions against Russian officials, which hurt the financial bottom line of the oligarchs that Putin has doled out control of state industries to. This is something that Trump has also occasionally hinted at, though never acted on.

Today, though, Trump slammed the door on even that possibility. He claimed that he wanted to punish the Putin regime, but for some unstated reason could only do so if all NATO members agreed to stop buying all Russian oil immediately. This is all but impossible for two reasons. First, it would hurt European allies more than it would hurt Russia, particularly going into the winter. And second, at least two NATO countries, Hungary and Turkey, are themselves run by autocrats who have used Trump to strengthen their own grip on power, and are effectively neutral where the Putin regime is concerned.

In other words, Trump is using the fact that 31 other allied countries won't instantaneously agree to do something against their own interests to escape having to do something—stand up to Vladimir Putin—that he is famously unwilling or unable to do in any event.

Trump, who has spent essentially all of his second term on the opposite side of a major war from his own government and public, once again today blamed Ukraine and the United States for somehow causing Russia's unprovoked surprise attack in 2022 that set off the current conflict.

Why does this matter?

• Past a certain point, it doesn't matter if a president's refusal to act in defense of the United States is because he's corrupt, scared, or just impotent.