On the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Donald Trump only had gifts for Vladimir Putin.
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What do you get that special someone in your life who has unlimited wealth and power? Well, like the Mastercard ad says, something that money can’t buy.
That’s probably what Donald Trump thought ahead of the third anniversary of his bestie’s invasion of Ukraine.
So, what did he settle on?
Well, after a month of throwing Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy under the bus and running him over repeatedly, Trump got Russian President Vladimir Putin a special present three years to the day since he attacked his neighbor.
In what would have been an unthinkable act at any other time in the past 80 years, the United States on Monday voted against a resolution in the United States General Assembly condemning Russia for starting a war that has cost tens of thousands of lives.
Since taking office, Trump has repeatedly (but unsurprisingly) tried to rewrite the history of the conflict, for example by calling the democratically elected Zelenskyy a “dictator” while refusing to say the same thing about Putin, an authoritarian leader who is mercilessly suppressing any kind of opposition in his country.
“I don’t use those words lightly,” the US president said at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron when asked if he would also refer to the Russian leader as a dictator.
The joint press conference also highlighted the growing rift between Europe and the US.
At one point, Macron corrected Trump when he lied about the aid that other countries are providing to Ukraine.
“Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine,” said the US president, who is trying to extort Ukraine by tying his support to getting a cut of the country’s natural resources. “They’ll get their money back.”
At this point, Macron interrupted him to set the record straight (and also clear up Trump’s lie that the US has given more money to Ukraine’s cause than Europe).
“No, in fact, to be frank, we paid 60 percent of the total effort: it was through, like the US, loans, guarantees, grants,” Macron interjected. “We provided real money, to be clear.”
Of course, the clearest evidence of this rift was revealed in the United Nations, where the US sided with Russia and 16 other countries to vote against the Europe-backed resolution condemning Moscow for its invasion on its third anniversary.
That list also includes stalwarts of international rights and democracy like North Korea, Belarus, Syria, Hungary, and Israel.
In the past, the US voted in favor of similar resolutions.
But the rift is not just between the United States and Europe. There is also growing dissension between Trump and pro-Ukraine Republicans, which is interesting because of how spineless GOP lawmakers usually are when they have to go up against the president.
Perhaps the best example came from former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who called out Trump in no uncertain terms.
He stated on Monday that “the previous Administration’s shameful hesitation and half-measures threaten to give way to something even more disgraceful: the obstinate denial of America’s security interest in Ukraine’s success.”
McConnell added that “refusing to acknowledge Russia as the undeniable and unprovoked aggressor is more than an unseemly moral equivalency – it reflects a gross misunderstanding of the nature of negotiations and leverage.”
The senator also called out Trump for picking the bully in this fight.
“Blame for this human catastrophe rests solely on Vladimir Putin. Here’s how we know: If Russian forces laid down their arms, Europe would be at peace. If Ukrainian forces laid down theirs, Putin’s aims would not stop with Kyiv,” McConnell stated. “Mistaking this fact is as embarrassing as it is costly.”
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.
