Today Trump, Vance, and others of the administration disgraced our country. They also showed the world that Trump cares more about Russia and Vladimir Putin than he does about the United States. I’m just now catching up, but I am utterly appalled and disgusted. When we ever pry MAGA out of Washington we must issue an abject apology to Ukraine and to Volodymyr Zelensky. But there will be no living this down, I’m afraid.
David Frum, The Atlantic, At Least Now We Know the Truth.
Ilan Goldenberg and Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian, Trump and Vance berate Zelensky
Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing, Politico, Russian state media briefly enters Oval Office during Zelenskyy meeting
Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, It Was an Ambush
The United States has formally left the “free world.” The United States has broken the post World War II world order that we led for so long. It’s over. And our nation is utterly disgraced.
Awful.
In his first term, Drumph threw the Kurds under the bus after they helped us in the fight against ISIS (in Syria). A group of people, not a nation, but once he abandoned them (no longer useful??) those fighters paid a huge price after helping US interests.
Today Drumph threw Ukraine under the bus. I am horrified (though not surprised). I'm disgusted, and embarrassed for my country. This is the betrayal of the Kurds time 1000. This time, a sovereign nation. A nation invaded by an imperialistic neighbor.
Welcome to Vichy Amerika.
This is a weird, complicated, and confusing question, but: If the Israeli people were asked if they support Ukraine or Russia, what would they say? What would Netanyahu say. Drumph admires Bibi cuz he's so TUFF. Would Bibi say that the weakling Jewish president of Ukraine should submit to his white Christian nationalist invader?
And the Whiner-in-Chief POTUS explains it as "Putin was put through the wringer by that stupid Russia-Russia-Russia hoax." O Vlad the poor baby who had to endure people saying unkind things about him.
The plan, and it was planned, was to insult Zelinsky into losing his cool. They wanted him to walk out, or insult Trump back, or side against Trump in terms of who treated Ukraine better. Anderson Cooper tried to with me – Hannity was more polite.
The thing is, I did not lose my cool. The feedback which my wife tracked, was against Cooper for rhetorically beating up on me. MAGA won't comprehend how despicable Trump's actions were. Anyone with any objectivity will get it. Trump is falling in the polls and this won't help. Wait until the economy decays. Wall Street is slipping – a series of Dow declines. Musk is less popular than Trump. Tariffs are due to hit Mexico and Canada next week. Unemployment numbers won't be pretty.
We're looking at a government shutdown in a couple of weeks. Trump will blame Democrats but the GOP has the power to avoid a shutdown without a single Democrat voting with Republicans. Messaging will be critical.
If anyone can dream up a dramatic way of apologizing to Zelinsky for the US President's rude betrayal of a courageous friend, sign me up.
I am more proud today of my Ukrainian heritage than on any other day before.
This sums it up:
https://snyder.substack.com/p/five-failures-in-the-oval-office
Donate now:
https://u24.gov.ua/
Slava Ukraini
Excellent links. Thanks.
Well said, Barbara. The Maga has become Make America Hated Again.
Now republicans have to look at what the whole world already knows – who they really are.
My favorite part of the debacle was when JAY-do-dee says "it is disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.”. Now that was rich, these two assholes bring Zelensky in front of the cameras and start berating him and heaping praise on Putin setting up a confrontation and then he has the balls to say that? I thought I was listening to a cheap wing-nut news panel mc'd by Tucker Carlson. I'm not sure what Zelensky could have done differently, maybe he should have just sat there, smiled and still refused to sign the deal. Unfortunately the confrontation seems to have solidified the magat base and the few GOP Ukraine supporters in congress so the end result is not good for Ukraine. We really seem to have lost our way on the foreign policy front, it's much worse now with Stump but it wasn't really much better with Biden. I think our policy toward Ukraine has not worked not to mention the genocide that Biden choose to fund in Gaza. I don't think funneling money to Ukraine endlessly is going to stop Putin. The only thing that will stop Putin is all of NATO deploying troops and actually helping to defend Ukraine. Make Putin fight in a real war against an adversary with overwhelming force. That would have been much more effective with the US playing a role. That may yet happen with some European Countries taking responsibility but the US is certainly on Russia's side now. I don't think you avoid world war three by being afraid to fight in it. Once again we're fucked.
The day the truth met the bubble. A skirmish between a fact-based reality and really bent facts. How bad was it? It was so bad that David Brooks claimed he got embarrassed. It was so bad that the Oval Office cried out for adult supervision. It was so bad that Lindsey Graham did the encore.
What a trust buster it was, so much so that David Brooks saw the USA not in an excusable error but on the wrong side of the wall Regan railed to get torn down. For years the USA has lectured other countries about human rights violations only to flip sides leaving both Europeans and its own citizens wondering if even they have any human rights left, that the USA might even pretend to respect.
Putin wears well the cloak of the far-right extremist. Unlike his USA admirers, he knows his propaganda for what it is, and he should, as he and his ilk created it. To have his lies parade as truth in the Ovil Office is quite the victory. The Miracle on Ice pales in comparison. That was just a game. This one is for keeps.
Well said, sir.
Thanks
I could see clearly after watching the video clips that the oval office debacle was a setup orchestrated by the Drumphistas. After sleeping on it, I think I've figured out why they planned it and executed it.
For context, here are a couple of things that I believe are true about Drumph: 1) He is clinically a paranoid. 2) In his life, the only thing he has had objective success at is playing a role on a fictional TV show. The upshot of this second part is that he is pathologically obsessed with his public image.
Here's what I think has happened. In the campaign he promised to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. That was a big part of his image. He has a delusion that he's a great "deal-maker" even though he sucks at it, so he actually believed he could deliver on that.
So he set himself up as the shuttle-diplomacy deal maker. First he talked to the big boys: Putin, Erdogan and himself. He figured if you give Putin what he wants, Putin will stop attacking. So then all he had to do was make Zelenskyy an "offer he couldn't refuse". So he started strong-arming Zelenskyy (shades of the first impeachment, any one?). When he found out, from public statements, that Zelenskyy would not agree to a compromising peace deal without security guarantees, Drumph realized that he (Drumph) would not be able to deliver the peace deal, because Vlad had already told him that security guarantees for Ukraine would be a deal breaker.
So the whole point of the oval office ambush was to create TV video in which the US POTUS & VP blame Zelenskyy for scotching the deal. Remember, with these guys, it's always about finding someone else to blame for your own failures.
Zelenskyy is no fool. He represents a country that was invaded by a neighboring country and which has been subjected to relentless bombing by that invader for years. From the outset, the people of Ukraine decided that they would not submit to the invaders. Zelenskyy is their leader; he cannot betray his people.
In the oval office meeting, Drumph told Zelenskyy "You have no cards…" Actually Zelenskyy has some cards: The support of his people, and natural resources. If I were Zelenskyy, after that oval office meeting, I would not be too quick to give Drumph any favorable deal on minerals. There are other potential buyers around the world.
That is an excellent summary, you might be in Stump's head, a scary place to be! The big thing to take from all of this is that it was as you say planned. Putin is the master at this sort of psyops operation, Stump is his asset. If you watch the video and see Zelensky's facial expressions you see that he knows it, he has heard this line of bullshit before. I guarantee you all of the leaders in NATO know it too. The entire administration is a not so covert Russian transformation and assimilation campaign. The far-right has been onboard with Putin for years (remember the Tucker Carlson Russia episodes where is said everything was swell over there). That is why Stump always brings up the "Russia, Russia, Russia hoax" bullshit because he knows the accusations are inevitable again and he is laying the ground work for another "witch hunt" excuse. I know this sounds a bit paranoid but I can't seem to wrestle another explanation that makes any sense, all roads lead to Putin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qanF-91aJo
Putin smiles.
Good news from Vermont:
"According to Fox News, the Vance family had to move to an "undisclosed location" today after he was met by pro-Ukraine demonstrators.
The crowd shouted furious insults at the second-in-command. People held signs with harsh words against Vance, such as "Nazi scum" and "go skiing in Russia." "
Thanks for the link I like that Irish Star site!