If you do not want to be completely disgusted, embarrassed and angry then don’t watch the video of the Oval Office discussion.
I knew Trump just wanted to try to strong arm him into signing away their mineral rights. They kicked them out of the Whitehouse afterward, and Trump said Zelenskyy could come back when he’s ready to talk about peace.
Zelenskyy literally kept asking about security measures/promises.
Why would he sign a deal to fork over mineral rights when America would just walk in, steal their minerals, and then immediately leave them SOL just like they did to the interpreters and people who helped in the war in the Middle East?
The one really great thing about this was that it was straight-up televised proof that Trump and company are authoritarian fascists. It’s kind of incredible that they are so blunt about it. I think that blunt straightforwardness will be their downfall.
You would have to be a very dense person or just as terrible to agree with them at this point. They have shown the world their true colors at this point, and I feel like it’s a matter of time before their time runs out.
Zelenskyy has pulled off an incredible diplomatic move. He’s illustrating to the public both at home and abroad, that Ukraine is an independent country and he’s calling trump’s bluff.
Trump has been bluffing this whole time. Leaning on this idea that he can just pull the plug on aid to Ukraine, on this idea of the unitary executive. The thing is, Ukraine is still a popular cause in America, both with in government institutions and the public, despite the efforts of so many. Trump’s bully pulpit is not so strong as to change that with a stroke of a pen.
Now, trump can attempt to unilaterally revoke aid, but that will run in to real legal road blocks and create bipartisan public dissent, thus undermining the fiction of the unitary executive. Or he can change his tone, real fucking fast, and claim he always had the intention to support Ukraine, his supporters will buy it, like every other random shift he’s pulled, and everyone else will shrug and say “I guess a broken clock is right twice a day”.
He’s put trump in a position where the only winning option is to support Ukraine, and the losing options earns him both another public opinion and institutional battle. The question is, what threatens trump more? That bad outcome or what ever the pro-russia people have on him?
Yes. Very good points.
Shortly before the meeting ended, Trump said, “This is going to be great television.”
In case anyone was curious about why it ended so dramatically.
Art of The Deal seems to have failed.
Funny how a ghostwritten book might not reflect the credited author’s experience and beliefs.
Funny/ Not Funny.
What an international embarrassment.
That’s what’s become of the US in only about a month or so.
Remember, Hitler only needed 53 days. This has been bandied about a bit, but when your mom reminds you of that, having been alive for the immediate postwar situation, it cuts a bit deeper.
Good on him. Fuck Trump and his bullying tactics. Trump deserves a fast hard punch straight to the neck.
So, what do we learn of this? I mean, if we hadnt done so before?
Nothing Trump says is worth anything.
He will contradict himself many times and deny it was different in the past. His voters dont understand, care, remember or all three.
Its lies, bullshit, bullying, more lies.
How do you ever justify that a president behaves like this??But “business man = good at running things”…. That’s what the narrative has always been. Cracks me up. We all work for businesses and complain about how stupid our companies handle things, but still this myth is spread. Macroeconomic government administration is nothing like running a corporation.
The country is literally being led (after Musk) by a guy who can lose money running casinos. Like, what other data do you need?
I think the hierarchy goes Putin, Musk, then Trump.
Translation: He’s not black or a woman.
You can’t justify it, it makes no sense.
@remington hot take: I think Ukraine will actually allow European companies access to rare earth minerals, as long as they also offer some production facilities locally - this will be especially useful for military purposes. Europe will also take advantage of locally produced Lithium batteries, necessary for cars and various electronics, and this in turn will make Ukraine even more attractive to Europe as a whole and will also be willing to make more concessions to Ukraine.
If I’m not mistaken, the US already has access to various rare earth minerals, that’s why for them, it is not so important and they can bluff. Zelenskyy just wanted to raise some interest for Trump in this whole rare earth thing in exchange for protection, but Trump saw the opportunity, and he’s now trying to twist this to his own interest (i.e. give me all your minerals, or you’ll no longer get support from us).
Ukraine is very lucky to have an extremely clever president who won’t easily give in. I guess the memory of the whole Budapest Memorandum fiasco also helps.
This largely relies on Europe getting its shit together in the face of a sudden trans-Atlantic shift. The resources are there; the question is the timeline. Everyone’s scrambling to figure out what NATO actually is, which provides this wedge.
@Powderhorn I think the incentive is there. The new chancellor of Germany is very americano-sceptic (given the current situation) and I do not think France will stand aside. Denmark is facing a possible future aggressor so it’s more likely to also push for europenism and other states might follow suit as well. Right now we’re caught off-guard indeed.
Have you read his bio? He is THE prototype trans-atlantic hawk, and still he looks like he is turning away from the US right now.
On the other hand, he is not elected Chancellor yet, so we won’t know for sure until then. Triggering a vote of no confidence would be REALLY dangerous right now, lest the far right gain even more votes. So he kind of has this leverage against his future coalition partner.
I see what you mean. Good points.
I expect more of the AP than this:
I used Noscript for over a decade and recently stopped and I don’t miss it. Ublock catches the really awful visuals and other addons/Firefox take care of the behind the scenes stuff. The only major change is I don’t have to open that menu on every single website I open to view the content I want to view or figure out which things need unblocked for the website to even work at all.
Uh, why not? That’s the point of the extension. My most recent ex was pretty pissed when we got a place together and she learned Meta was not allowed on the network.
Goddamn
When your members are endlessly shutting down, I can see why this approach looks appealing as a side gig, but this is a structural problem.
What blocker is that?
This is NoScript.
Couldn’t Zelenskyy just lie about it?
“Oh yeah, you can totally have all our minerals.”
*2 years later
“What, no mineral shipments yet? Musta got lost in the mail. Gonna invade us for it?”
People like Putin and Trump renege on international agreements. Real leaders don’t, because they realize that will fuck their countries from a geopolitical point of view for potentially generations to come.
Or just hope that some other president is in place that will forgive the debt?
