275 Make Russia Great Again: The Crowning Achievement of Putin’s Career
UPDATE:
Place this in the right place but it’s perfect on this point
If Donald Trump were a foreign agent trying to destroy the U-S from within… what would he be doing differently? Crash the stock market, bring on a recession, make it worldwide, with economic policies so insane that yesterday CNBC called them insane, not only get out of NATO but pit the US AGAINST NATO, sacrifice countries to the Russian dictator, push a cease fire in Ukraine that serves only to give Russia 30 days to re-fortify their troop positions, threaten our forever allies like Canada and Mexico, cut off humanitarian aid fast enough to start killing people via disease outbreaks in the same month, start dragging citizens and LEGAL immigrants off the streets and hold them incommunicado in distant concentration camps without trial prior to deportation, try to break the constitution to hold office to avoid prison, blackmail the owners of the major media companies to support him or at least destroy their news outlets, violate every law and make sure all the prosecutors and judges are loyal to you and NOT to the law, decapitate not the EXCESS in government but the people who know how to stop plane crashes and epidemics, turn the agencies over to every con man and idiot and loser and lunatic he could find, roll back human rights for minorities, burn all governmental records, base his decisions on the failed economic policy of 1894 that the professor must’ve been talking about the ONE day he didn’t cut class in college, give a line item veto to a compulsive liar drugged-up foreigner who literally blows up everything he touches, and finally take a 100 million dollar bribe (I’m sorry, contribution) in public during a live infomercial for the druggie’s self-driving self-detonating cars.
UPDATE:
The return of Charles Johnson and the DOGE hacker with ties to sanctioned Russian oligarch
So You Think You’re in Charge…
✨ Goddess ✨: “You’ve earned an “I told you so” or two!” — Bluesky
UPDATE: Jasmine Crockett on “gaslighting”
I’m going to start this chapter with yet another prediction I hope is wrong but I’m very concerned about the welfare and future of Zelensky. It’s self evident that Putin wants him gone but it’s also become self evident even for the many living in self denial that the Trump-Vance Administration-or Trump-Vance-Musk-wants what ever Putin wants.
Elon Musk’s recent tweets have been very worrisome-at one point he floated the idea that Zelensky could receive AMNESTY.
Musk suggests Zelenskyy be offered “amnesty in neutral country”
This on top of Trump’s despicable slandering of Zelensky as “a dictator without elections” suggests strongly that part of the “ceasefire” the Trump Russia House is interested in is one where Zelensky is pushed out of power. Indeed Musk’s comments make you seriously worry for Zelensky-like could he be in physical danger? Putin has obviously wanted him dead for years and has tried in the past to make it a reality but Zelensky and his team were able to thwart it but this was before Trump ended all intelligence sharing with Ukraine-after unconstitutionally ceasing sending weapons to Ukraine the day before-it’s constitutional as Congress approved the aid.
FN: If Hakeem Jeffries frets about what Democrats can do how about an article of impeachment for this? This is hardly unreasonable seeing as Democrats did impeach Trump for holding back the weapons in 2019. That no one is even talking about that now just shows how much Trump’s unconstitutional behavior has been normalized-he’s easily committed 100 articles of impeachment in the first 6 weeks.
The “ceasefire” Trump is so concerned is pretty curious. As Trump and JD Vance frame it it appears to only apply to Ukraine-the nation which was attacked rathe than the aggressor. Indeed Putin’s “peace plan” entails him NOT withdrawing troops how’s this for an Orwellian headline?
Putin insists on peace terms without withdrawing troops
How is it “peace” if Putin doesn’t withdraw his troops? It’s not despite Trump’s maudlin pretense that “I just want to stop the killing” when in fact killing is fine with him-judging by how unmoved he was after Musk unconstitutially “ended” USDA. This has lead to a great many deaths and Trump has notably not lost any sleep over it. Yet Musk accuses ZELENSKY of wanting “forever war”-as I discussed in Chapter Roger Stone the Right has gotten very good in the last few years starting with Trump’s run in 2016 with appropriating the slogans of the Left-“forever wars” which is only ever applied to Ukraine the country that has been subject to a three year brutal invasion and NOT Russia which is presumed to be as peaceful as a dove despite it being the aggressor.
Yet when Musk declares “this is evil” he’s NOT referring to former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev’s declaration that “Moscow’s primary objective now is “inflicting maximum damage” on Ukraine”
but rather at Zelensky who he accuses of wanting “a forever war” once again using the narrative of the leftist Tankies.
Indeed Katie Halper has apparently gone full Nazbol now and continues to pummel the victims and accuse them of all manner of crimes
The Ukrainian Kidnapping Videos Western Media REFUSES To Show You – YouTube
Her and Aaron Mate used to do a show called Useful Idiots and you got to hand it to them for the truth in advertising. Apparently she doesn’t know that Russia has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children, forced them into adoptions to Russian parents and prepared them to go back and fight against their own country and families. But she isn’t worried over that. Even if she did it’s likely she wouldn’t care this is how perverse the Tankie Left has become-these days many are more or less Nazbol, more or less MAGA. It was always obvious to me in truth they were part of the MAGA base whatever they tried to tell you.
Indeed despite my atheist tendencies people like her-and Mate, Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore, Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer-make me reconsider-it could be worth it to have a God in the heavens just so these pathetic Russia cum Assad apologists can burn in hell preferably in the same “lake of fire” as Trump, JD Vance, Elon Musk, Putin himself, as well as Netanyahu.
I’m sorry it’s just hard to even put into works how frustrating it is for #ResistLibs like myself who have been warning for 9 and a half years that this is exactly who Donald Trump is and been dismissed by the Savvy as having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and being full of “McCarthyism”-get it? You can’t criticize Russia as that makes your criticism “McCarthyite” despite the fact that the targets of McCarthy-who was both a Republican and long time Nazi sympathizer-were mostly liberals and leftists.
Like Maya Angelou said when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time. I have believed Trump since he declared “Russia if you’re listening I hope you’re able to find the 32,000 emails I think you’ll be richly rewarded by our press.”
And Trump has shown us who he is 50,000 times since for a conservative estimate yet many still claim to be puzzled by the idea that Trump could be a Russian asset. Many were shocked and appalled by the way Trump and Vance treated Zelensky. Not me-I was appalled but hardly shocked. This is who Trump is, who he has been, who he always was since at least when visited Moscow for the first time in 1987-weeks after returning he ran for President for the first time. I know the Savvy will declare this “just another coincidence.”
So even after the ambush CNN simply rejected the idea that Trump is a #RussianAsset out of hand.
CNN described literal “bewilder[ment]” about why Trump would sell out America’s allies.
[W]hy the US president would choose the Kremlin over America’s traditional partners remains the subject of intense speculation.
Much of it, like the frequent suggestion that Trump is somehow a Kremlin agent, or beholden to Putin, is without evidence.
Perhaps the right-wing US ideological fantasy that Russia is a natural US ally in a future confrontation with China, and can be broken away from its most important backer, is motivating Washington’s dramatic geopolitical shift.
But for many bewildered observers, both explanations for Trump’s extraordinary pivot to the Kremlin seem equally misplaced. [my emphasis]
Russia Russia Russia – emptywheel
Yep, much of the conventional wisdom-which a Nietzschean cum Zarathustrain like myself always seems like something of a contradiction in terms-has preferred over the last 9 and a half years since Trump has infected our politics to be “bewildered” than face the self evident truth that Trump is a #RussianAsset. While the MSM gripe how “this is the age of pettiness”
If anything is “petty” it’s their coverage which has contributed so much to where we are today-not the age of pettiness but of Trump’s Manchurian authoritarianism
As for the idea that there’s NO evidence this is one of the major moments of Original Sin from the legacy press as EW documents:
CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, after which Dmitriev reached out and discussed a bunch of investments — investments which would require ending sanctions — as a way to improve relations. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Russia attempted to help Trump win in 2020 at least by sending disinformation framing Joe Biden and his kid via Russian agent Andrii Derkach to Trump’s personal lawyer. CNN asserted there’s no evidence to back the claim that Trump is “beholden to Putin” in spite of the fact that Derkach made similar efforts in 2024, and a bunch of Russian malign influence efforts (possibly including bomb threats that forced the evacuation of Democratic precincts) similarly aimed to help Trump and others who would “oppose aid to Ukraine.”
One very significant reason we are where we are is because of the media’s fomenting the false narrative of the Bill Barr fake exoneration letter that ‘Mueller proved no collusion.’ The entire sorry episode is a classic example of lies prevailing over truth. It’s a major reason that Trump and Putin have won. As we saw in Chapter Lex Fridman, Zelensky had poignantly made the point that Putin’s war is as much as anything an informational war. After hearing the lies that Trump has told the last few weeks culminating with that shameful moment in the Oval Office last Friday-indeed the most shameful moment in certainly any recent US history-it’s striking to the extent that Russian disinformation has prevailed. And the “bewildered” media has committed to Putin’s victory in no small part.
But many have chosen to be bewildered rather than believe Trump.
As Claire Berlinsk puts it in a recent appearance on the Bulwark “Trump has always loved Russia”
But this evident Putin love is always obscured. ‘Oh he’s just transactional’-not untrue but he’s lot more than just that, explaining it all with this is superficial to say the least; ‘he’s a dealmaker’-he’s the consummate deal maker FOR PUTIN;, ‘he’s a real estate guy from NY’-his prowess in this area has been rather overstated.
This is why so many were shocked by that fiasco where these two pathetic Putin worshipping cowards Trump and Vance double teamed a true hero of our time, the Churchill of our time like Vladimir Zelensky. It wasn’t if you believed Trump when he showed you who he was the first time and that’s before we even talk about Vance who’s the Putin’s hack Putin hack. As for those who remain Savvy-a la Jay Rosen-and insist it WASN’T an ambush-the very presence of Vance showed it WAS an ambush. As we saw in chapter Charles Johnson, while it’s pretty clear by now despite my initial optimism that Johnson is a simply too big a flake to in any way have confidence in the idea he could be a strategic ally he DID manage to release 20 months of texts with Vance which showed his absolute disdain for Ukraine, indeed his attitude on February 28 was the same attitude displayed in his texts
“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine,” Vance wrote in October of 2023, in one text obtained by the Post. “Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. Bitching about F16s.”
Uncovered texts reveal lengthy conversations between JD Vance and Holocaust denier | The Independent
FN: Chapter Charles Johnson for more
In the ambush led by Vance he voiced this same peevish theme: ‘You’re ungrateful for all we did for you.’ I mean Vance has literally done NOTHING for Zelensky seeing as he voted against aid every time in the Senate. As for failing to thank “President Trump” what actually has Trump done?
Seth Abramson: “Hat tip to @alanferrier.bsky.social.” — Bluesky
Trump’s story that he saved Ukraine doesn’t pass the laugh test. Most of the weapons were sent from President Biden-which Trump is now illegally refusing to send. The javelins from his first term were passed by a veto proof majority in Congress-then, of course, he withheld the weapons in an attempt to force Zelensky to do a phony investigation into Joe Biden as was impeached.
FN:
Good to see Vance’s poll numbers fell after this despicable performance-but again:
Vance surprisingly took center stage for part of the fiery exchange between him, Zelensky and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on February 28, taking the lead in accusing the Ukrainian president of being disrespectful toward the U.S as rarely a vice president does
JD Vance Suffers Polling Blow After Zelensky Clash – Newsweek
It’s not surprising at all if you believed Vance when he showed us who he is-again this was the same peevish sentiment he expressed in the Charles Johnson’s texts.
End FN
Many Americans were outraged by this hideous fiasco which Trump clearly scripted to be like an episode of the Apprentice-‘You’re fired.” Even many Trump supporters were outraged. Of course none of them ever saw it coming and neither will they now admit the truth: that we #ResistanceLibs were right all along. They’ll NEVER admit THAT they’ll go to the grave never admitting that they’d rather die than admit THAT.
This is why you have to love Vaush-he’s one of the few on the Left who always admitted we liberals were right about Trump and Russia.
Trump Allies With Russia, BETRAYS Ukraine
Now even with Vaush he sort of underestimates the importance of WHAT we were right about and he kind of dismisses the idea that there was any “deep conspiracy”-it’s more in the way he frames it that Trump likes that Russian money. He dismisses the idea that there is a deeper Trump-Russia conspiracy. He acknowledges Trump-Russia collusion going back to 2016 but dismisses the idea of a deeper connection than Trump is a money loving grifter that loves the Russian money. While Vaush-of course-remains my favorite streamer it might be his Marxist worldview a la Heidegger which makes him skeptical of “conspiracies.” In other chapters I’ve discussed how thanks to him I’ve come to see Marxism as a very helpful heuristic tool in analyzing society certainly today’s Trumpian society.
UPDATE: Kyle says it plainly the #ResistanceLibs were right about everything regarding Trump
It’s amazing how far Kyle has come in 4 years-in 2020 he was Bernie or Bust now he just says it: the #ResistanceLibs were right about everything regarding Trump and Russia. I do think this is the good influence of Vaush on him
In chapter Inauguration I discussed how Remain In Hell made a great point about the relevance of the 18 Theses of Brumaire today. So even though I’m a liberal hardly a Marxist I see now more than ever that Marxism is a useful tool for analysis. Having said that one drawback is it’s tendency to dismiss “conspiracies”-Vaush tends to see such political events through the lens of actors following their material interests-and this lens has value. But precisely because powerful actors desire satisfying their material interests they often engage in wide ranging nefarious conspiracies-a major theme of not the theme of this book. As I discuss elsewhere October 28, 2016 was the day this was really brought home to me in a way I can never unsee. In any case there’s no contradiction in a world where material interests are major motivating factors which also motivates grand conspiracies.
FN: Again I speak about this elsewhere but see especially Chapter Craig Unger
And most people don’t even acknowledge the Trump-Putin alliance certainly Vaush is fairly unique on the Left. He acknowledges it but chooses not to delve into the motivations of it more deeply. In a sense he’s right-whatever the motivation clearly to quote Claire Berlinsk again: Trump loves Russia. But unless we delve deeper into motivations we will be left “bewildered” as CNN puts it.
Many besides MAGA and the Tankie Left failed to see Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine coming despite all the evidence that this was always where he was going to end up over the years-going back to his first impeachment; again why haven’t the Democrats written articles of impeachment for this as they did in 2019?
Indeed while I’m a big fan of Jake Broe and appreciate his knowledge about and advocacy for Ukraine he failed to understand who Trump was and so for three months post November 5 had been predicting that Trump might be very good for Ukraine(!) His premise was very similar to many commentators: Trump is transactional and just wants a GOOD DEAL to make himself look STRONG. Surely once he sees that Putin has no interest in a deal Trump will turn on him. This is a similar fallacy to those on the Left before the election who suggested that because Trump is unprincipled and has no consistent ideology maybe he’ll turn on Netanyahu after he sees Bibi doesn’t want a ceasefire(!)
This hits on yet another zombie idea that never dies with Trump that his allegedly lack of a consistent ideology could be a good thing-after all maybe his positions today are terrible but tomorrow he might wake up on the other side of the bed and suddenly get some good ones. This is a fallacy as his talk of making GAZA beachfront property. This TOO should NOT have been a surprise as Jared Kushner had talked about this kind of an idea for years. But again and again folks choose NOT TO BELIEVE TRUMP THE FIRST TIME.
As we saw in Chapter Netanyahu my premise which I will take to the grave is that Trump and Bibi had a deal similar to the one the Reagan campaign had with the Iranian Ayatollah in 1980 to wait until after the election for a ceasefire deal. I had been predicting that the Israel hostages would be released 20 minutes after Trump was sworn in-actually they-at least some of them-were released the Sunday before.
THIS is why it’s important to understand Trump is a Russian asset and his ideology is VERY CONSISTENT: Russia First. In judging a hypothesis obviously a major selling point is it’s explanatory power and once you understand this you understand Trump far more as opposed to just talking about how “bewildered” you are.
For those of us who believed Trump-who never hid who he is-it was self evident he was always going to end up by Bibi’s side
Trump’s Simple Chair Pull For Netanyahu Breaks The Internet: Netizens Ask, Who’s Really Leading US?
Who is leading the US? Not US interests that’s for sure. Remember years go Bib had dismissed America as “something which can be controlled.”
So for us #ResistanceLibs there’s good news and bad news. The good news is we were right that Trump in power would be the end of the freaking world, the bad news is: it’s the end of the freaking world.
Seth Abramson was right despite being dismissed and treated with mirth by the MSM for years when he wrote Proof of Conspiracy which talked about a grand conspiracy-the Red Sea Conspiracy-which included not just Russia BUT ISRAEL.
FN: As well as the Saudis, UAE, Egypt…
UPDATE:
So it wasn’t a surprise for those of us who knew about the Red Sea Conspiracy when both the US AND ISRAEL voted against condemning Putin’s invasion. Indeed, Israel for its part never condemned Russia even for Israel’s brief respite from Bib when Naftali Bennett was PM. ‘
For us Trump is exactly who we have been saying he is for the last nine and a half years but its’ cold comfort.
Dennis Green CLASSIC – The Bears are who we thought they were – YouTube
FN: While one zombie argument Israel’s apologists a la Alan Dershowitz always make is that we have to defend them as they’re the Middle East’s only democracy it’s not noticed that Netanyahu has been in power roughly as long as Putin has.
And it’s fair to say that our US foreign policy serves not US but Israeli and Russian interests. But to quit being BEWILDERED by Trump you have to get it that he’s a Russian asset.
FN: I use “asset” more a term of art than an precise legal term.
Again the failure to understand this is very wide not just the MAGA Right or Tankie Left but among the Democratic consultant class like in Carville’s Dems should rollover and play dead manifesto he said this:
“It’s a wiser approach than we pursued in the first Trump administration, when Democrats tried and failed at the art of resistance politics. We voiced outrage on social issue after social issue. We spun ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia. We fought Mr. Trump at every corner, on every issue imaginable and muddied up our message in an unwinnable war. We were saved only by his lousy governing and a lot of effort on our side finding good candidates to run for the House and Senate in 2018. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is retreat on the immediate battlefield — and advance in another direction.”
Opinion | James Carville: It’s Time for a Daring Political Maneuver, Democrats – The New York Times
I also quoted him in Chapter Roger Stone and again-“resistance politics” didn’t fail though clearly Carville doesn’t like them. We basically won three straight election cycles until 2024. But this dismissal over spinning “ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia” didn’t age too well.
Once you understand unlike Carville and his consultant friends that Trump is a Russian asset his actions are far more understandable and make far more sense-again he DOES have a unified foreign policy: Russia First.
UPDATE: After Trump’s authoritarian screed of a State of the Union speech-technically it’s not SOTU as he just got there though in his unique case it really WAS as he’s already seriously damaged the economy that had been the envy of the world in 6 weeks., Carville declared Trump hates America and wants to break it down with him.
Trump HATES The Country And Is Bringing It Down With Him (w/ James Carville) – YouTube
YES BUT Carville still doesn’t know why as he fails to understand Trump’s a Russia asset.
The costs of failing to understand this are steep. So even very nice and well meaning folks who are very smart and knowledgeable and really love and care about Ukraine like Jake Broe or Joe Lindsay of the Silicon Curtain have been entirely blindsided as they don’t understand Donald Trump.
Indeed Lindsay tried so hard to be fair in his post Trump-Vance ambush show he suggested that Zelensky had been wrong to “lose his cool” with Trump-Vance. I disagree I don’t think he lost his cool at all, he actually acquitted himself very well considering the level of pressure he was under and the unfair playing field he faced. Trump and Vance had the homefield advantage, this was in public being beamed out to all the world, they had him completely by the shorthairs as he needs the US aid and to add to it English isn’t his first language and Trump and Vance were ganging up on him and raising their voice-Trump further gaslighted him by telling him Vance WASN’T raising his voice.
Zelensky had to keep his composure, while not letting himself get entirely roiled-as the Ukranian people as Lindsay himself admitted wouldn’t tolerate Zelensky letting himself get totally bullied either. He had to stand up for himself while maintaining total composure and civility and this wasn’t his first language and Trump-Vance were engaging in total bad faith.
No. Once you understand who Trump is and his genuine motivations there was nothing Zelensky could have done-it’s been noted that the behavior of Trump-Vance was abusive behavior and big part of abusive behavior is gaslighting-trying to destroy their victim’s own sense of reality and tricking them into thinking they did something wrong-like the battered wife who wonders where she went wrong.
This is why for me nothing of which we’ve seen the last few weeks has been a surprise. To the contrary I wish we had been wrong. I didn’t buy the premise that Trump is transactional and a deal maker and therefore he’d insist on getting a good deal for America-because he doesn’t give a crap about America. OTOH he really likes Russia. Don’t get me wrong February 28 was traumatic. It was a national trauma it will take us years of therapy to ever get over. Seth Abramson said it well:
Never in my life have I been so ashamed of my own country. We’ve had bad moments-like Vietnam or the Iraq War but this is something worse as we’ve betrayed our own allies. Meanwhile Trump claims they’d never fight for us when they have fought for us-remember Afghanistan? It’s we who have failed them.
Keith Olbermann quite rightly apologized to President Zelensky on our nation’s behalf.
He’s not wrong. As Hakeem Jeffries ‘struggles to see what power Dems have’-Chapter Roger Stone-he should listen to Olbermann who has argued for a month the Democrats should do new articles of impeachment every week. This week should be illegally refusing to send Ukraine the military aid approved of by Congress. Again the Dems impeached him in 2019 for withholding Ukraine aid why not now? It won’t pass now of course but it will give them a narrative. Introduce the articles at a Sunday morning press conference at say 9 AM before the shows start so Dems can frame a narrative.
Many Americans felt this shame unlike anything we’ve ever felt before. Claire Berlinski called it “the most shameful day in the history of the Republic” and she spoke the truth:
I believe what we saw earlier today in the Oval Office was the single most shameful moment in American history. There have of course been other shameful moments. We have betrayed our allies before. But never before have we done it while bullying and humiliating them in front of the entire world because we thought it would make “good television.” Never before have we turned the Oval Office into a spectacle so classless that even Tony Soprano would have vomited to see it. Never before have we done this for no reason but the benefit and pleasure of the murderous enemy of the United States who is chortling and dangling our president’s puppet strings. Never before have our leaders appeared so indescribably ignorant, so galactically self-absorbed, so petty and petulant, so obviously and dangerously unfit and unstable, so preposterous, and so menacing. Never before have they publicly betrayed us, declaring, before our eyes, their allegiance to an enemy who has been working incessantly to discredit our form of governance, reduce our power to insignificance, set us at each other’s throats, and murder us. Trump declared his allegiance to Putin publicly while his repulsive sidekick smirked and preened, and not one person in that room had the guts to say, “That’s enough, assholes. This is the People’s house.”
(16) From the Berghof to the Oval Office – by Claire Berlinski
This is because we’ve never had a Presidential Administration this compromised. The US is being led by an Executive serving not American but Russian-and I would say Israeli interests. Again note that Israel voted with the US at the UN against condemning Russia’s invasion.
For Trump-Vance’s shameful treatment of the courageous Zelensky truly the Churchill of our times Ms. Berlinski analogizes it to Hitler’s bullying of the Austrian Prime Minister in 1938.
I have been trembling with anger at those despicable thugs since I saw that. Enough of apologizing for them, of equivocating, of normalizing this in any way. They are thugs. They are traitors. The whole world saw it. So did we.”
Amen. They are despicable, they are thugs, they are traitors. We must never forget and we must never forgive THIS. I certainly have atheistic tendencies but after watching this I’m almost considering it-I’m all for an afterlife if it means these pathetic and cowardly traitors can burn in hell.
The scene instantly evoked the meeting in the Berghof, and there is no reason to believe that their proud stupidity, vanity, and cruelty has a limit. They are not whatsoever constrained by considerations of decency, or the American interest. What we just saw is enough to know: Anything is possible.
The cowardice and dereliction of duty of the many, many Americans who have led us to this moment will never be forgiven. Every single worm responsible will live with the shame of this day—and this won’t be the last day we’re introduced to new depths of shame.”
She’s certainly right that their stupidity and cruelty has no limit-Trump has since as noted above illegally and unconstitutionally ceased sending weapons and the next day he stopped sending intelligence. This has already led to hundreds of deaths. Yet Trump claims all he cares about is for ‘the killing to stop.’ His actions that serve only Putin’s interests have led to more not less deaths and this will only get worse.
So let’s take it from the top. Trump has been beholden to Putin since he helped steal the election for him-with a major assist from Comey’s FBI true. But when you do the history it goes back 40 years we discussed earlier in this book. but the important thing to understand is that Russia’s cultivating of Trump goes back to the 1980s during the Soviet Era. Let’s start with Seth Abramson:
“The New York Times reports that the European Union remains uncertain of whether Donald Trump is indifferent to or contemptuous of it. But there’s candidly no reason for such doubt—Trump’s contempt for Europe is at least as old as his fondness for the Soviet Union and then Russia, and it stretches back at least forty years, likely more.”
This touches on a recurring problem-too many still refuse to see Trump for who he is. They insist on seeing him as nothing more than “transactional” “a dealmaker” or God help us “a builder” but someone with no consistent ideology or worldview and this is an intellectual rabbit hole even many intelligent people of goodwill fall into. Like Jake Broe, even Michael McFaul who in a recent interview on The Bulwark seems to suggest Trump is simply ‘a bad dealmaker after all.’ But this assumes he wants a good deal for Ukraine or even American interests when there’s scant evidence of that. No Trump made a different kind of “deal” years ago.
FN:
Trump’s Pivot to Putin? Former U.S. Ambassador EXPOSES Why The Shift Is So Horrifying
What’s not widely appreciated if at all is that Trump first publicly announced his intention to run for President in August 1987 one month after visiting Moscow for the first time. No longer than three former top level KGB agents ” have confirmed that the KGB recruited Trump while he was, at its arrangement, in Moscow in 1987
What’s really interesting and belies the zombie idea that Trump has on consistent ideology or agenda is that soon after the announcement he released his first policy proposal that called for ENDING THE MARSHALL plan. Hard to think of any position more convenient to Russia than that. And when you look at his proposal in an expensive newspaper ad it’s striking both how great this proposal was for Russia and how familiar it is in 2025 after having watched him contaminate our politics the last 9 and a half years:
“Here is the full text of Trump’s 1987 open letter:
There’s nothing wrong with America’s Foreign Defense Policy that a little backbone can’t cure.
An open letter from Donald J. Trump on why America should stop paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves.
To The American People:
For decades, Japan and other nations have been taking advantage of the United States.
The saga continues unabated as we defend the Persian Gulf, an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies, but one upon which Japan and others are almost totally dependent. Why are these nations not paying the United States for the human lives and billions of dollars we are losing to protect their interests? Saudi Arabia, a country whose very existence is in the hands of the United States, last week refused to allow us to use their mine sweepers (which are, sadly, far more advanced than ours) to police the Gulf. The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help.
Over the years, the Japanese, unimpeded by the huge costs of defending themselves (as long as the United States will do it for free), have built a strong and vibrant economy with unprecedented surpluses. They have brilliantly managed to maintain a weak yen against a strong dollar. This, coupled with out monumental spending for their, and others, defense, has moved Japan to the forefront of world economies.
Now that the tides are turning and the yen is becoming strong against the dollar, the Japanese are openly complaining and, in typical fashion, our politicians are reacting to these unjustified complaints.
It’s time for us to end our vast deficits by making Japan, and others who can afford it, pay. Our world protection is worth hundreds of billions of dollars to these countries, and their stake in their protection is far greater than ours.
Make Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others pay for the protection we extend as allies. Let’s help our farmers, our sick, our homeless by taking from some of the greatest profit machines ever created — machines created and nurtured by us. “Tax” these wealthy nations, not America. End our huge deficits, reduce our taxes, and let America’s economy grow unencumbered by the cost of defending those who can easily afford to pay us for the defense of their freedom. Let’s not let our great country be laughed at anymore.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Trump
Yes, Trump paid for full-page newspaper ad criticizing US foreign policy in 1987
This shibboleth is pretty familiar it’s the same stump speech we’ve been hearing from Trump the last nine and a half years. Now many have seen this speech of Trump’s as evidence of his Xenophobia and racism and indeed that’s how I’ve always seen it-certainly in this speech he was focused on Japan who many at that time feared-needlessly as it turned out-would overtake us economically. But in retrospect what stands out even more than that is how these countries who were taking advantage of us were mostly US allies:
The paid advertisement ran in the Sept. 2, 1987, editions of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe.
Digital archives show the ad running on Page A28 of The New York Times and page 48 of The Boston Globe. The Washington Post also included a short piece by Howard Kurz titled “Between the lines of a millionaire’s ad,” which read in part:
Donald J. Trump, the multimillionaire developer who has gotten into some well-publicized spats with city officials here, is using his cash to wade into the more exotic waters of foreign policy.
In full-page advertisements running Wednesday in The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Boston Globe, Trump argues that the United States should present Western Europe and Japan with a bill for America’s efforts to safeguard the passage of oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
When a prominent private person spends $94,801 to publicize such a message, it raises the age-old question: What’s he running for?
A book about Trump’s worldview published by Charlie Laderman and Brendan Simms in 2017 takes on much more added significance now:
The price of the ad was further corroborated by Charlie Laderman and Brendan Simms’ 2017 book “Donald Trump: The Making of a World View.”
An excerpt from the book reads:
Like so many Americans of his generation, Trump’s world view was shaped by the trauma of the hostage crisis and the sense of US decline in the late 1970s and 1980s. He also shared the widespread sense that America’s allies were not pulling their weight, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and that these “friends” were taking unfair advantage of the United States with respect to trade. In September 1987, Trump paid almost $95,000 to take out a full-page newspaper advertisement that ran in the New York Times and several other outlets to air his grievances with America’s leaders and its allies. The advert was an open letter to the American people that criticised successive US governments for “paying to defend countries that can afford to defend themselves.” Already famous in the US and around the world as a multi-millionaire real estate developer, this letter was the opening gambit in Trump’s first flirtation with running for high office.
Trump’s 1987 manifesto on foreign policy resurfaced in the wake of Trump’s contentious meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which sparked concerns over Trump’s history with Russia and the United States’ overall commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance formed between North American and European countries in the aftermath of World War II.”
Seen this way Trump’s Weltanschauung is pretty clear and his foreign policy is not so “unpredictable” after all quite the opposite actually. Indeed let’s read a short passage in “Donald Trump: The Making of a World View” and note that this was written in 2017 a time when the fairly widely held view of Trump was that he has no consistent or coherent worldview:
The final chapter will show the remarkable consistency of Trump’s thought over time and suggest what it might mean for the world order over the next four to eight years. We shall repeat ourselves, because he has done so over three decades. That is something worth repeating, again and again, until everyone has taken it on board.”
Pg. 8
End FN
Unfortunately the time frame that his views would have an impact on our world have proven longer than four or even eight years but this is still very much worth repeating, again and again, as few still have taken it on board-though hopefully more are after February 28, 2025 a day that will live in infamy.
But Trump has a very clear consistent worldview-or as Seth Abramson puts it-the Trump Doctrine: seems to me the most apt, succinct way to put it is: #RussiaFirst. Doesn’t seem so unreasonable considering Trump “is moving mountains to serve Putin” and what it does have is explanatory power.
Trump is moving mountains to serve Putin
As Kim Leclerc says:
For many it’s a willful blindness. In this regard it’s hard to not think again of Kasie Hunt on the night of Bill Barr’s fake exoneration letter declaring “people are tired of Mueller” and MSM pundits declaring to effect that ‘Democrats should be grateful OUR PRESIDENT didn’t collude with Russia’ which as discussed in Chapter Katy Kay is far from what the Mueller Report said but by then the truth didn’t matter the Savvy pundits had their narrative and it was off to the races.
We’ve had a lot to say about this tendency of the legacy media which honestly deserves its fate though its fall is not something to celebrate as what is replacing it is worse but see Chapter Craig Unger on the October Surprise to look at it in an even more incisive way-what’s great about him is he’s someone who worked in the mainstream media and can tell us first hand that we’re not crazy and that access journalism is a thing and a very harmful thing at that. As we saw in Chapter October Surprise-assuming I don’t change it-we talked about the propensity of many to prefer not to believe any story that upsets their preconceptions which is a big part of this willful blindness.
Speaking of Craig Unger he has written much on Trump’s cultivation and recruitment by the Russians.
Ever wonder why a US president would consistently align with Russian interests for decades? Investigative journalist Craig Unger has spent over ten years untangling the web of connections between Donald Trump, Russian money, and the Kremlin.
Since Trump’s return to office in January 2025, Politico has documented 29 instances where his positions aligned with Putin’s in his first month alone. But according to Unger, this pattern started long before the presidency – in Trump Tower, 1984, with a Russian businessman carrying $6 million in cash.
Craig Unger: Trump Won’t Betray Putin After 40 Years of Russian Money
Indeed after Trump-Vance’s shameful ambush of Zelensky Russia allowed itself a little victory lap
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Friday said US President Donald Trump showed “restraint” by not hitting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their shouting match in the White House.
“I think Zelensky’s biggest lie of all his lies was his assertion in the White House that the Kyiv regime in 2022 was alone, without support,” she wrote on Telegram.
“How Trump and Vance held back from hitting that scumbag is a miracle of restraint,” she said.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, called Zelensky an “insolent pig” who had received “a proper slap down in the Oval Office”.
“Historic, Insolent Pig”: What Russia Said After Trump-Zelensky Fight In Oval Office
Yep-again all the worst people won on November 5
Meanwhile Dimitry Peskov who had no little role in Russian Collusion Coordination and Conspiracy Circa 2016 spiked the ball:
Again if you still want to deny Trump’s a Russian asset what would he be doing as a Russian asset for Russia he’s not doing now? Again Politico documented 29(!) instances where his policies meshed with Russia’s in the first five weeks. The idea that this is a coincidence doesn’t pass the laugh test. As David Frump recently put it:
According to The Guardian Russia’s cultivation of Trump goes back to 1977 with his marriage to Ivanna-who was from the Czech Republic. The CR, part of the Soviet Bloc, spied on all Czech citizens who emigrated:
The Guardian reported that Czech intelligence services targeted Trump in the late 1980s following his 1977 marriage to his first wife, Ivana Zelníčková. British intelligence also warned the US of Trump’s contacts with Russia in 2015.”
FN: For more on the Czech connection
Another important point that Seth Abramson makes is that Trump really never was terribly successful as a real estate man. Beyond the constant narrative that Trump’s “transactional” but he’s a “dealmaker” is the idea “Trump’s a builder” when in reality he hasn’t built anything in a long time. And he was never exactly a prodigy in the “building” business.
Speaking of the KGB’s recruitment of Trump in1987 Seth writes thus:
And 1987 was the perfect year for such an intervention to arrive.
Why? Because what Donald Trump learned about himself throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, as he ran the Trump Organization into the ground, was that he actually had failed at the three things his life had been self-admittedly constructed around: being as great a businessman as his father had been (he was manifestly not); being a “killer” as his father had commanded (which he couldn’t be, of course, if he weren’t a great businessman, and, again, he wasn’t a great businessman); and finding a woman who would actually love him, as his mother didn’t appear to.
Trump’s first of six quick-succession bankruptcies would arrive in 1991, but by July 1987—when he traveled to Moscow at the clandestine arrangement of the KGB—he may not have been fully aware of its sponsorship of the opportunity, but he surely was aware that the Trump Organization was collapsing under his years of mismanagement”
FN:
End FN
Now Craig Unger:
It really goes back to 1980 when Donald Trump was just starting out and had his first successful real estate adventure.
He’s had a lot of failures. This one was actually a success — he developed the Grand Hyatt Hotel right near Grand Central Station here in New York.”
So it turns out that Trump only achieved business success how he would years later achieve political success: with Russian interference.
And like every big hotel, he needed a lot of TV sets. And he ended up buying them from the Joy Lud electronics store, which was a front for the KGB. And I got that information from a former agent with the KGB, Yuri Shvets.
And it really all started from that. They sent out a spotter agent, someone who’s trying to recruit talent for someone who can help the KGB later on — and they came to Donald Trump.And that set off a series of meetings and events, which led to Trump’s first visit to Moscow in 1987.”
The Kyiv Independent: If you had to pick three things that are the biggest pieces of evidence that Trump was, or is a Russian asset, what would you choose?
Craig Unger: In 1984, a man named David Bogatin came to Trump Tower, which is a crown jewel among Trump’s buildings, and put down $6 million on the table and bought five condos. What was interesting about that was that according to FBI files, Bogatin was a member of the Russian mafia.
And this was the first of many such people who are affiliated with the Russian mafia — I found a total of 13 people — who lived in Trump Tower or other Trump buildings.
Trump was hosting the Russian mafia for many years before he even ran for president. So that’s one thing.
Another is when he went to Moscow in 1987. This was a visit that was set up by the KGB, according to Shvets. And when Trump got there, he was sort of groomed by the KGB.
He came back and a lot of people have forgotten this, but he made a brief abortive run for president in 1988.
He also took out a full page ad in The New York Times (NYT), that was assailing America’s alliance with NATO.
People are shocked today that Trump is betraying Ukraine, he’s betraying Europe, he’s siding with Putin. Well, he did it as early as 1987, when he was starting to run for the presidency in 1988. And that is very well documented, it was printed in the NYT.
It’s exactly the foreign policy he is acting out today that is so horrifying. This is the end of NATO, it’s the end of the Western alliance. Trump is allying with Vladimir Putin, and against Ukraine and all of Western Europe.”
Exactly-Russia First.
Let’s for the heck of it get some more color on the background of Trump’s 1987 KGB recruitment trip to Moscow 1987. In the 1980s the KGB began to retool its process of recruitment.
The Center, as KGB headquarters was known, was especially concerned about its lack of success in recruiting US citizens, according to Andrew and Gordievsky. The PR Line—that is, the Political Intelligence Department stationed in KGB residencies abroad—was given explicit instructions to find “U.S. targets to cultivate or, at the very least, official contacts.” “The main effort must be concentrated on acquiring valuable agents,” Kryuchkov said.
The memo—dated February 1, 1984—was to be destroyed as soon as its contents had been read. It said that despite improvements in “information gathering,” the KGB “has not had great success in operation against the main adversary [America].”
One solution was to make wider use of “the facilities of friendly intelligence services”—for example, Czechoslovakian or East German spy networks.”
The KGB came up with some strategies of how to cultivate US targets, agents, or at least contacts.
In January 1984 Kryuchkov addressed the problem during a biannual review held in Moscow, and at a special conference six months later. The urgent subject: how to improve agent recruitment. The general urged his officers to be more “creative.” Previously they had relied on identifying candidates who showed ideological sympathy toward the USSR: leftists, trade unionists and so on. By the mid-1980s these were not so many. So KGB officers should “make bolder use of material incentives”: money. And use flattery, an important tool.
Flattery of course will get you anywhere if the subject is Donald Trump.
One solution was to make wider use of “the facilities of friendly intelligence services”—for example, Czechoslovakian or East German spy networks.”
Again it was through the Czechs who the Russians first learned of Trump as his wife was Czech.
And: “Further improvement in operational work with agents calls for fuller and wider utilisation of confidential and special unofficial contacts. These should be acquired chiefly among prominent figures in politics and society, and important representatives of business and science.” These should not only “supply valuable information” but also “actively influence” a country’s foreign policy “in a direction of advantage to the USSR.”
Hmm. Let’s say that last part again: but also “actively influence” a country’s foreign policy “in a direction of advantage to the USSR.”
There were, of course, different stages of recruitment. Typically, a case officer would invite a target to lunch. The target would be classified as an “official contact.” If the target appeared responsive, he (it was rarely she) would be promoted to a “subject of deep study,” an obyekt razrabotki. The officer would build up a file, supplemented by official and covert material. That might include readouts from conversations obtained through bugging by the KGB’s technical team.
The KGB also distributed a secret personality questionnaire, advising case officers what to look for in a successful recruitment operation. In April 1985 this was updated for “prominent figures in the West.” The directorate’s aim was to draw the target “into some form of collaboration with us.” This could be “as an agent, or confidential or special or unofficial contact.”
This is also very interesting indeed arresting:
The form demanded basic details—name, profession, family situation, and material circumstances. There were other questions, too: what was the likelihood that the “subject could come to power (occupy the post of president or prime minister)”? And an assessment of personality. For example: “Are pride, arrogance, egoism, ambition or vanity among subject’s natural characteristics?”
Notable that they were looking for someone who could run for Office in their home country and it seemed that they were looking for precisely Trump’s “natural characteristics.”
Next they looked at potential for-Kompromat. Just like they considered pride, arrogance, egoism, vanity, etc selling points they also considered philandering an attractive character trait:
“Finally, “his attitude towards women is also of interest.” The document wanted to know: “Is he in the habit of having affairs with women on the side?”
I don’t know if Trump is the perfect candidate but if he’s not who is? It’s like maybe he’s not an asset but no asset could take actions more convenient to Russia than he’s been taking.
FN: Trump is moving mountains to serve Putin
As for how Trump came to visit Moscow he had discussed it in The Art of the Deal:
“As Trump tells it, the idea for his first trip to Moscow came after he found himself seated next to the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin. This was in autumn 1986; the event was a luncheon held by Leonard Lauder, the businessman son of Estée Lauder. Dubinin’s daughter Natalia “had read about Trump Tower and knew all about it,” Trump said in his 1987 bestseller, The Art of the Deal.”
Trump continued: “One thing led to another, and now I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government.”
Shockingly Trump’s version of events is hardly the entire story-I know didn’t see that coming.
Trump’s chatty version of events is incomplete. According to Natalia Dubinina, the actual story involved a more determined effort by the Soviet government to seek out Trump. In February 1985 Kryuchkov complained again about “the lack of appreciable results of recruitment against the Americans in most Residencies.” The ambassador arrived in New York in March 1986. His original job was Soviet ambassador to the U.N.; his daughter Dubinina was already living in the city with her family, and she was part of the Soviet U.N. delegation.”
Again flattery will get you everywhere and anywhere especially if the target is Trump:
Dubinina said she picked up her father at the airport. It was his first time in New York City. She took him on a tour. The first building they saw was Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, she told Komsomolskaya Pravdanewspaper. Dubinin was so excited he decided to go inside to meet the building’s owner. They got into the elevator. At the top, Dubinina said, they met Trump.
The ambassador—“fluent in English and a brilliant master of negotiations”—charmed the busy Trump, telling him: “The first thing I saw in the city is your tower!”
Dubinina said: “Trump melted at once. He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him [Trump] like honey to a bee.”
This was six months before Trump visited Moscow in July, 1987:
This encounter happened six months before the Estée Lauder lunch. In Dubinina’s account she admits her father was trying to hook Trump. The man from Moscow wasn’t a wide-eyed rube but a veteran diplomat who served in France and Spain, and translated for Nikita Khrushchev when he met with Charles de Gaulle at the Elysée Palace in Paris. He had seen plenty of impressive buildings. Weeks after his first Trump meeting, Dubinin was named Soviet ambassador to Washington.
Dubinina’s own role is interesting. According to a foreign intelligence archive smuggled to the West, the Soviet mission to the U.N. was a haven for the KGB and GRU (Soviet military intelligence). Many of the 300 Soviet nationals employed at the U.N. secretariat were Soviet intelligence officers working undercover, including as personal assistants to secretary-generals. The Soviet U.N. delegation had greater success in finding agents and gaining political intelligence than the KGB’s New York residency.”
Dubinin’s other daughter, Irina, said that her late father—he died in 2013—was on a mission as ambassador. This was, she said, to make contact with America’s business elite. For sure, Gorbachev’s Politburo was interested in understanding capitalism. But Dubinin’s invitation to Trump to visit Moscow looks like a classic cultivation exercise, which would have had the KGB’s full support and approval.”
Back to The Art of the Deal:
In The Art of the Deal, Trump writes: “In January 1987, I got a letter from Yuri Dubinin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, that began: ‘It is a pleasure for me to relay some good news from Moscow.’ It went on to say that the leading Soviet state agency for international tourism, Goscomintourist, had expressed interest in pursuing a joint venture to construct and manage a hotel in Moscow.”
The Politico asks another very good question:
There were many ambitious real estate developers in the United States—why had Moscow picked Trump?”
A lot of reasons you would think starting with the fact-again-that the Trump Tower in NYC was one of the few buildings in the city which allowed anonymous sales making it a perfect residence for Russian money launderers. Trump certainly enjoyed his trip to Moscow:
According to The Art of the Deal, Trump toured “a half dozen potential sites for a hotel, including several near Red Square.” “I was impressed with the ambition of Soviet officials to make a deal,” he writes. He also visited Leningrad, later St. Petersburg. A photo shows Donald and Ivana standing in Palace Square—he in a suit, she in a red polka dot blouse with a string of pearls. Behind them are the Winter Palace and the state Hermitage museum.”
A little more from the TrumpFile.
Almost a decade after he became a target, the KGB meets with Donald Trump.
The operatives feed Trump common KGB talking points and flatter him by floating the idea that he could be president someday. Trump’s ego latches on.
For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.
This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites, and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.Former KGB agent Yuri Shvets, The Guardian
Almost immediately after returning to the U.S., Trump begins teasing a presidential run.
In September, Trump takes out ads attacking NATO and accusing our allies in Japan and Saudi Arabia of exploiting us. The KGB celebrates.
Donald Trump meets the KGB in Moscow, decides to run for president (July 4, 1987)
Again we see Trump’s worldview has been remarkably consistent since August 1987 when he first started talking about running for President-based on this information it was the Russians who were pumping him up as someone who could be President someday. For those willing to actually see-as we develop more in Chapter Craig Unger that looks at some other work of his the October Surprise of the 1980 campaign-many people have chosen not to see and even now many are still not willing to see the big picture. Even someone like Alexander Vindman.
While his book on the failure of US Russia policy-the failure of realism, etc-is excellent and very much worth reading he still despite what he’s been through personally with Trump tends to frame Trump in the longer trajectory of US Russia policy when clearly Trump is something that can’t be compared to any previous Administrations. Certainly from the point of view of our Ukranian allies the last 34 years or so are of US treachery. Bush via the Budapest memorandum forced Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons in exchange of a supposedly ironclad vow promise we’d defend them and now Trump has now abandoned them with nary a backwards glance.
But Trump’s Russia policy is more than simply “naive” as you can say of Bush’s Budapest Memorandum or Obama’s Reset. Trump is compromised-he’s not making mistakes he’s compromising our country and that’s why Russia has supported him all these years. Talk about a ROI.
We remember how starstruck Trump was with the idea of meeting Putin at the Moscow beauty pageant in 2013. In the 1980s he was simiarly starstruck with the idea of meeting Gorbachev. As a matter of fact at one point a Gorbachev impersonator tricked him at Trump Tower.
FN:
End FN
Trump announced a meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev before the trip but months later says the meeting never takes place. Trump does meet Gorbachev in December at the U.S. State Department.
For months, Trump teases a presidential run. He even gives a campaign speech to Republican donors in New Hampshire, but he never registers as a candidate. When Trump makes a formal run for office in 2000, his platform is in line with the policies Russia is looking for: a leftist, populist agenda that will be more welcoming to the former Soviet Union than Ronald Reagan and the establishment presidents that followed.”
Again once you understand this Trump’s foreign policy becomes very easy to understand indeed predictable. Like right now as of 3/11 it’s pretty clear where this is going: Trump is trying to force the minerals deal on Zelensky at the barrel of the gun but he’s not even offering anything in exchange-on Sunday his Administration said simply accepting this bad deal would not be sufficient for Trump to restore the military aid and intelligence assistance.
But again like Jon Stewart says this is the heel move-as Russia is the alliance Trump always wanted.
FN:
It’s been a goal of the populists to end US hegemony. Trump is literally to use Mitch McConnel’s formulation “managing US decline.”
FN: Unfortunately this is paywalled.
Populists Are Tired of the U.S. Being in Charge
But Trump has nothing to offer Ukraine but a poison pill-the contours of what Trump wants is clear enough-Zelensky needs to step down after he signs the bad minerals deal, the only allegedy security guarantees being the bad minerals deal. Little Marco Rubio yesterday reiterated what Trump and Pete Hegseth have said-Urkaine has to give up land. That’s the STARTING OFFER. Russia so far has had to give up nothing. As John Bolton says Russia doesn’t have to negotiate as they’re already getting everything they want
FN: To be clear Bolton is also no hero-like Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Roger Wicker, Thom Tillis et al-he’s wanted to have it both ways; he’s been deeply concerned about the damage Trump can do to our national security for years and he’s wanted to do something but only to the extent it’s not in any way inconvenient to the political prospects of the Republican party.
So good for Zelensky for not meeting in person in Saudi Arabia for Trump’s administered Russian shit sandwich.
Scaramucci proposed an interesting theory on a podcast yesterday: This is Trump’s version Brexit-with Brexit the British ended up with much less advntageous trade terms with Europe than they had as members of the EU
Going back to the subject of Trump’s hero worship of Putin, former Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull has observed Trump speaking to Putin and remarks that he seems in awe of the Russian dictator.
Here it becomes harder to dismiss Seth Abramson’s oedipal psychoanalyzing of Trump out of hand in his successful recruitment by the then USSR-Trump has desperately sought surrogate fathers Putin has filled the spot as previously did Gorbachev. Point is Mother Russia herself has turned out to be Trump’s Good Daddy the father who he could actually impress.
FN: Link again
So once you understand Trump’s trajectory his foreign policy makes sense-he essentially is here to throw a wrecking ball into our international alliances; in 2016 he kept repeating that he thinks it would be ‘nice to get along better with Russia’-what’s striking here in March 2025 is Russia seems to be the ONLY country he wants to get along with better while destroying our relationship with our Nato allies and trading partners. Indeed, late last week he revealed he’s considering taking US troops out of Germany and INTO HUNGARY
A little more color of 1987 in the TrumpFile:
Update 7/9/24: A previous version of this post said that, upon returning from Moscow, Trump began telling reporters that he has a plan for the Soviet Union. The source we obtained this from had the date wrong. The interview was two years prior. In it, Trump says if he or someone like him is in power, then the U.S. and the Soviet Union will join forces, combine our nuclear stockpiles, and “dominate” Third World countries–even if it takes cutting off millions of people from food and water. (Yes, he really does say that.)”
How’s that for a prediction? The combination of nuclear stockpiles(!!!) hasn’t happened yet but cutting off millions of people from food and water and dominating Third World countries seems prophetic at this point.
So once you understand the Trump Doctrine-Russia First-his foreign policy is strikingly consistent and coherent going back to that first ad he put out in August 1987. But how about his domestic policy? Does his Russia First foreign policy also inform Trump’s domestic policy? Clearly Trump putting a dangerous charlatan like RFK Jr at HHS hardly hurts Putin. He may well get a kick out of how the US under Trump keeps punching itself in the dick so to speak. And it is notable that RFK Jr has also been channeling Russian disinformation for years.
Above we saw how ending US hegemony has been a goal of the populists for some time. Destroying our military and trade alliances is certainly pretty helpful to that end. It’s notable that as the US stock market continues to tank as Russia’s has started to rise with Trump’s signal he’s interesting in ending the sanctions against Russia. Marcy Wheeler had more on how Trump’s domestic policy might also be helpful and convenient to Putin’s Russia-she lists five ways Trump is sabotaging the United States to the benefit of Putin:
Five Ways Trump Is Sabotaging the United States – emptywheel
So Trump pronounces himself unconcerned about joint military exercises between Russia, China, and Iran. One idea that no longer even passes the laugh test if the GOP chicken hawk Trump Era Doctrine of Asia First.
Remember “Great Power Competition?” Lol. – Lawyers, Guns & Money
In reality besides Russia no one gains more from the US’s “self impeachment” to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi than China. But according to him he’s not worried about this any more than he’s concerned about the huge stock selll off yesterday and talk of the coming #Trumprecession
White House: Stock market plunge not as ‘meaningful’ as business moves
Right it’s not meaningful NOW last year when the market had a bad day it was the “Kamalacrash”
Recently Vaush said “the world will never forgive America” for what Trump-Vance did to Zelensky in that damnable press conference. True-as an American I will never forgive us for that, certainly never forgive anyone who voted for Trump or who for years have dismissed “Russian Collusion.”
For Putin’s Russia however you have to admit they coup they’ve pulled off here is one for the history books. As Anne Applebaum says for three years Putin’s been losing everywhere-except inside Donald Trump’s head. Trump’s snarky claim that Ukraine has “no cards” doesn’t pass the laugh test at least UNTIL NOW.
But now Trump seems determined to rescue Russia. At this point you can only hope that Europe is able to react in time to save Ukraine. Clearly leaders in France, Germany and the UK are talking in ways that suggest they understand the moment-though UK’s Brexit looks even more ironic now.: I was speaking to some friends and relatives from England just recently-true story, I was born in England. I raised the idea perhaps the UK should go back to the EU-one of them, however, responded with skepticism that Europe wants England now. Which is understandable seeing what a dog’s breakfast the UK-on Bluesky someone complained about the word “Britain” isn’t it England who had this bright idea-has made of things not surprising Europe is hardly interested in bailing them out. But with the new threat of a Russia unchecked by the US maybe desperate times call for desperate measures?
Germany is rightly talking about a future where Europe is more independent of the US and Macron had a truly inspired speech. But can Europe begin manufacturing munitions again in a hurry? That remains to be seen and it’s hard to be too optimistic in the time frame Ukraine needs. Yet if anyone can get through this it’s the brave Ukranian people who have again and again defied the odds-as did the Syrina #Resistance in taking down Assad.
One defining characteristic of Trump supporters is they all admit Trump is a leopard but always think he won’t eat THEIR FACE. You could make the analogy between Trump supporters and women who think they alone can tame a bad guy-he won’t be bad TO HER. But what’s reassuring in this narrative-it means THEY’RE special. So you have Hispanic voters-Trump got like 47% of the Hispanic vote?!-who assumed Trump wouldn’t deport their family member they’d assumed he’d only deport criminals though this is not what he actually said. What he said repeatedly was that he hates immigrants period. OTOH it’s misleading to take solace in the premise he will only deport criminals as he-and the entire Republican party-argue that by definition being deported is a crime. Beyond that just as in his first term he deports a high level of LEGAL immigrants.
You have all these videos where government workers who Elon Musk DOGEd tearfully telling us that they support “President Trump” they voted for him. Honestly it’s hard to understand how any government worker votes for Trump or any Republican really-by definition the GOP’s ideology is shrinking government until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub. It’s kind of like 47% of Latinos voting for him, or 53% of women.
Yet it’s pretty tough to feel sorry for Trump supporters. After all they knew he was a leopard. Let’s be clear they wanted him to hurt people just not them. Probably the group that had the most rational reason to presume Trump wouldn’t eat THEIR FACE was Wall St who was very supportive of Trump coming back to the WH. When Trump won the market soared the next day-Jim Cramer welcomed him in at CNBC like the conquering monarch he wants to be.
Now in just 7 weeks Trump has managed to pretty much singlehandedly tank the market which is now down 8% in that time with no defining underlining economic event just Trump’s erratic on again off again tariff talk and in this short amount of time there is now serious discussions about the possibility of a recession.
Trump’s mismanagement of the economy is so bad a CNBC host today questioned wether he’s deliberately trying to manufacture a recession.
CNBC journalist calls Trump ‘insane,’ host wonders if he’s out to ‘manufacture’ a recession
This is the kind of theory that the “anti conspiracy” folks in the MSM tend to rule out of hand but again like the question of whether he’s a Russian asset if he’s NOT trying to deliberately tank it what WOULD HE be doing differently IF HE WERE? Hard to imagine. And we do have Elon Musk’s comments just before the election that we actually NEED a recession-the necessary medicine for a society overdependent on the “administrative state.”
FN: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page aptly calls Trump’s on again off again tariffs the Dumbest Trade War in History
UPDATE:
ProChoice Mike: “It took Trump 2.0 what 53 days to go into correction territory?” — Bluesky
Now however Wall St itself is beginning to worry-maybe Trump will eat THEIR FACES too. And indeed after saying on Sunday he can’t rule out a recession he’s been dismissing the lately daily tanking of the stock market.
Sitting in a panel with host Joe Scarborough, Ruhle, a former Wall Street executive, first dismantled assertions made by billionaire Elon Musk about the economy before changing the topic to the president’s treatment of President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.
“People are bracing themselves you know, the business community,” she began. “Donald Trump did the unthinkable, he killed animal spirits, despite the fact that he that he’s going to be extending tax cuts, that it’s going to be a deregulatory bonanza, and that this is a big business administration.”
“In the last two weeks alone, you’ve seen lots of people in the business community, many who were supporters of the president, suddenly paralyzed, saying, ‘I can’t look right, I can’t look left, I don’t know what this guy is about to do.’ And the thing that’s most disturbing for them, and he didn’t talk about it much, is truly his alignment with Russia in the last week.”
White House adviser who urged Trump to ‘lay off Ukraine’ is being punished: MSNBC host
But again he told you everything he was going to do. His alignment with Russia wasn’t surprising to we #ResistanceLibs we’d been fulminating about it since 2016. Too many folks failed to listen Maya Angelou when she said when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time? Not only did people not believe Trump the first time they didn’t believe him the 100th or 1000th time. Even now some are still claiming not to understand what Putin has on Trump when it couldn’t be more obvious for those who don’t choose to be willfully blind. Here we’re getting back to the subject matter of Orwell which we cover in a few other chapters more fulsomely. Going back to Hobbes why do people choose slavery and subjugation?
As to the “Trump advisor” this article discusses who was “disciplined” or daring to speak up on behalf of Ukraine one obvious guess is-Little-Marco Rubio. Not that he deserves IMV ANY sympathy. It’s amazing how all these GOP chicken hawks have show us exactly who they are. The entire Republican party has done this political “evolution” the last 13 years-from when Romney declared Russia our number one geopolitical foe in 2012 and now with the entire party turning on Zelensky at Trump’s say so.
And sure you can point out that Obama’s blithe response-‘The 1980s called and it wants its foreign policy back’-completely missed the moment. I mean no question Obama was very naive about Putin and who he is. Let’s face it looking back over the last 20 and a half years since his career making DNC speech Obama was to put it charitably rather overly optimistic about a number of things. That’s true but what’s the excuse for the GOP who correctly saw who Putin was in 2012 and have now implicitly become Putin’s party in the ensuing 13 years other than rank political cowardice?
What actually happened since 2012 was an evolution with different Republican members “evolving” at different speeds. The first sign of Russification was when they changed the RCN platform under pressure in 2016 from offering Ukraine lethal military assistance to simply military assistance. Per Jeff Gordon this was at the direction of Trump himself.
FN:
Seth Abramson
Pg 171.
There are some varying accounts on this to be sure. Slate points out that Gordon claims he DIDN’T tell this to Ted Cruz delegate Diana Denman-who had protested the platform change at the time and he claims he doesn’t even recall making the claim.
The report mostly confirms what has been reported by the Post and later the Daily Beast about the incident. At a meeting of the national security platform subcommittee shortly before the convention, on July 11, 2016, Diana Denman, a Ted Cruz–supporting delegate, submitted an amendment to the platform denouncing Russian military aggression in Ukraine and calling for the provision of lethal weapons, a step the Obama administration was then opposing.
J.D. Gordon, a former Pentagon spokesman who was then a national security adviser to the Trump campaign and attended the meeting as a non-voting observer, flagged the amendment, saying he did not believe it corresponded with Trump’s views on Russia and Ukraine.
Denman says Gordon told her during the meeting that he was on the phone with Trump himself, but she was skeptical of this claim, and Gordon denies ever making it. Trump told the Mueller team he did not speak with Gordon about the matter, though phone records show Gordon called Jeff Sessions’ office that day.”
It should be pointed out though these are both political motivated GOP actors who both have plenty of reason to lie about this conversation-as it’s fairly politically embarrassing for both of them in retrospect-assuming they both remained REPUBLICANS at least. Also probably Gordon probably didn’t want the world to believe he was in favor of the change-his narrative presents him as raising questions about it.
For more on Gordon’s own EVOLVING position on the RNC platform see TPM
Note though since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 Ted Cruz has voted against Ukraine aid every single time. Not surprising Denman herself is now singing a different tune-for all we know she herself no longer supports Ukraine.
UPDATE: Place in Emptywheel other link
CATO’s Missing DOGE Model: DOGE Is a Pro-Russian Intelligence Operation – emptywheel
UPDATE:
Most Americans Disagree With Donald Trump on Ukraine
They disagree with Trump on most things from abortion, to sensible gun control to sensible immigration reform to Social Security-almost no one wants it cut or privatized
#RussiaFirst Once you understand that is the Trump Doctrine nothing will surprise you-it’s obvious this is going to be a total sellout to Russia ? is what Ukraine should do but they need to be prepared for it
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-breaks-the-taboo-of-negotiations-over-ukraine-s-territories/ar-AA1B9lHg?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=32831522b3894917a0e6f93fa6367592&ei=20
Can we call him a #RussianAsset yet?
UPDATE: Masha Gessen discusses how now that Trump has blatantly switched the US to the Axis side Russian dissidents don’t know how safe to feel in America now either
See also:
Craig Unger: Trump Won’t Betray Putin After 40 Years of Russian Money
UPDATE: The limits in Vindman’s understanding of Trump-his reluctance to believe the truth that Trump’s a #RussianAsset
Comparatively Jon Stewart seems to back into perfectly explaining it: “it was a heel turn designed to create the alliance Trump always wanted in the first place. What’s to understand? Trump and the Republicans like Putin better.”
15:29
On Trump’s historical hatred of our nation’s allies
More on Trump profile: he’s functionally illiterate and maybe really badly so maybe borderline illiterate. He’s never read the PDB of course.
Unearthed Video of Trump STRUGGLING Goes VIRAL
Links for screeshots:
Putin would regularly ‘make fun’ of Trump during talks and he had no clue: ex-official
Russia issues statement after Trump threatens “devastating” punishment
Trump’s National Security Advisor Tells Fox News That Putin Can Have Eastern Ukraine
See also Seth’s recent post which I fully agree with in terms of the New New World Order of Trump-Musk-Vavnce-Putin-MBS-Xi.
The biggest joke is Trump is so heartbroken over killing that he just HAS TO cease hostilities now
Trump’s team plans to revoke legal status of 240,000 Ukrainian refugees, Reuters reports
Anne Applebaum’s post and post that argues this is the crowning achievement of Putin’s career
(2) ProChoice Mike: “Maybe the most disgraceful moment in American international history” — Bluesky
Ukraine will resist ‘with their bare hands’ if forced into unjust peace, CIA chief says
If you agree that Trump has committed 100 impeachable offenses in first two months repost
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-touched-after-receiving-beautiful-gift-from-putin/ar-AA1BA5nt?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=fb06ce6f31a14a64800f059ef95f7168&ei=8
Interesting piece on conventional fallacies on Trump’s foreign policy
UPDATE: What’s really shocking about Vance’s leaked foreign policy texts
But again what’s really shocking is not that Vance broke on the Houthi strikes but why: because he worries it would benefit the Europeans too much. He seriously hates Europe-which now that this has leaked they now get more evidence how much he does
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/24/vance-broke-with-trump-over-houthi-airstrikes-group-chat-report-says-00245996
UPDATE: In short America is destroying itself(12) Signalgate: violating national security – by Timothy Snyder
It’s not even about bringing back American imperialism but Russian imperialism
It isn’t that surprising if the American Century is finally over what is shocking is America is intentionally destroying itself or rather Putin’s asset in the White House is. To be sure the Tech and Crypto Bros share the desire to destroy the US