Donald Trump launched a full-scale verbal attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday that left no doubt as to whose side the US president is on.
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While there has been a lot of talk since the election that Elon Musk is running this administration while Donald Trump is just running around, playing golf, renaming gulfs, and attending sporting events, it is important to remember that the president is also the lapdog of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
He has been doing his best to remind us in the first month of his presidency.
First, Trump laid the groundwork for conducting talks with Russia to end the war Putin had started. However, those “negotiations” primarily seem to consist of the two countries conspiring to hand Putin a big win.
Trump and his team have already undercut Kyiv’s negotiating position (repeatedly) and let European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy know that they will only get a seat at the kiddy table as the US and Russia hash out an agreement that helps Putin a lot more than anybody else.
Then, on Tuesday, Trump suggested that Ukraine started the war, which would be the first time in military history that a country began a war by allowing itself to be invaded by a superpower.
However, just in case anybody still had doubts as to whose side the US president is on, he launched a verbal broadside against Zelenskyy that was full of venom and lies.
“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle,” he wrote on his social media site.
Just about every part of that is incorrect (including Trump’s use of capitalization).
The US has contributed nowhere near that much to Ukraine’s cause and less overall than European countries combined (another thing Trump got wrong). In addition, it’s not as though the US is sending cash to Ukraine but rather weapons that are made (and purchased) in the US.
“On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING,’” he added. There is no evidence to back that up.
But that was not all.
“He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden ‘like a fiddle,’” Trump stated. “A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
On Tuesday, the US president claimed that the Ukrainian leader’s approval rating was 4 percent, which may be true in Russia but not in Ukraine.
And Trump still wasn’t done.
He also accused Zelenskyy of wanting to “keep the ‘gravy train’ going” before saying that he did a “terrible job” and that “MILLIONS have unnecessarily died.” Needless to say, “millions” have not died.
So, what is all of this about?
Let’s not forget that Putin and Zelenskyy were linked to two of the most important events of Trump’s political career.
The Russian president helped him get elected with a targeted hacking and misinformation campaign, while Ukraine’s leader was at the center of his first impeachment.
And if there is one thing we know about Trump, it’s that he rewards his allies and seeks to punish his “enemies.”
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else
