‘Your Mom’: Trump White House Goes Back to Middle School With Response to Question on Putin Summit

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he leaves the White House, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Washington, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, looks on. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and communications director Steven Cheung dove back into the middle school well to respond to a question from HuffPost on Friday.

After President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would meet with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Budapest, HuffPost reached out to ask who had suggested Budapest.

Leavitt replied, “Your mom did,” while Cheung kept it shorter, writing back only, “Your mom.”

HuffPost’s S.V. Date offered some context explaining why the choice of Budapest was notable:

After all, the Hungarian capital was the site of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine gave up the thousands of nuclear weapons it had inherited upon the breakup of the Soviet Union in return for assurances that Russia would respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Putin broke that promise with his 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea, with his decade-long military offensive in the Donbas region, and then with his all-out invasion in 2022. He continues killing Ukrainian civilians in their homes to this day with regular drone and missile attacks.

Trump wrote the following on Truth Social after a call with Putin on Thursday:

I have just concluded my telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, and it was a very productive one. President Putin congratulated me and the United States on the Great Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East, something that, he said, has been dreamed of for centuries. I actually believe that the Success in the Middle East will help in our negotiation in attaining an end to the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin thanked the First Lady, Melania, for her involvement with children. He was very appreciative, and said that this will continue. We also spent a great deal of time talking about Trade between Russia and the United States when the War with Ukraine is over. At the conclusion of the call, we agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week. The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated. A meeting location is to be determined. President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this “inglorious” War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end. President Zelenskyy and I will be meeting tomorrow, in the Oval Office, where we will discuss my conversation with President Putin, and much more. I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation.

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