336 - The White House Becomes a Capo Haven: Threatening to Take Out a Defender of Universal Freedom

"Every time we think we have taken the measure of Mr. Trump, every time we think we have understood the depths of his depravity, the absoluteness of his nullity, the scale of the threat he represents – to American democracy...to the peace of the world – he defeats us. He does or says something far worse than we had ever thought possible, even of him." -- Peter Coyne, Toronto Globe & Mail

A successful impeachment would have saved us, and the rest of the world, from our many embarrassments, from uncouth mouthings from the White House or Mar-a-Lago, from despicable attacks on our allies, from the systematic undermining of our precious and hard-won national security, and a groveling president doing everything he can to weaken these United States while placating Putin.

Trump hoped, maybe, to cut a good deal with President Volodymyr Zelensky to gain easy access to Ukraine's mineral wealth. But when Zelensky refused to grovel, refused to supplicate, and rightly asked for some security guarantees, Trump (and Vance!) jumped on Zelensky in front of TV cameras and, among other things, called him ungrateful not sufficiently obeisant. These were the Mafia dons expecting a courageous leader to roll over and due tricks for his new masters.

Zelensky walked into a well-prepared ambush. The two thugs were waiting for him, and almost nothing except total genuflection could have kept Trump and Vance from piling on. They called him names, they prophesied an outcome that was all in Putin's favor, they all but promised a withdrawal of continued American support and assistance. By referring to a potential World War III, they tilted the balance of American support distinctly away from Ukraine. Senator Lindsay Graham, that toady, even added his verbal cudgels to their own.

Trump shouted at and talked over Zelensky while praising Putin as a peace maker. President Trump loudly told the Ukrainian leader: “You’re either going to make a deal or we’re out.”

This is what Trump said incoherently (from an official transcript): "What if a bomb drops on your head right now? OK? What if they broke it? I don’t know, they broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn’t respect him. They didn’t respect Obama. They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. You ever hear of that deal? That was a phony. That was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff. It was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it. We didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bedroom. It was disgusting. And then they said, ‘Oh, the laptop from hell was made by Russia.’ The 51 agents. The whole thing was a scam. And he had to put up with that....[Putin] was being accused of all that stuff. All I can say is this: He might have broken deals with Obama and Bush, and he might have broken them with Biden. He did. Maybe. Maybe he didn’t. I don’t know what happened. But he didn’t break them with me. He wants to make a deal. I don’t know if he can make a deal."

Trump went on to threaten: You had “better move fast or [you are] not going to have a Country left.” "I gave you the javelins to take out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. In fact, the statement is: Obama gave sheets, and Trump gave javelins. You got to be more thankful because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don’t have any cards."

According to the wise reflections of New York Times' columnist Thomas Friedman, "If you listen to Trump, everything we have done for Ukraine is pure altruism. We have no actual interests at stake ourselves in its fate or the triumph of liberty there. We have no actual interest in the fact that Ukraine is protecting the European Union — a giant, pro-American alliance of free markets and free people. It doesn’t matter a whit to Trump what happens to the E.U. or Ukraine. All that matters is that Zelensky says “thank you” louder for our altruism and that, in the middle of his war of survival, sign over a generation of Ukraine’s mineral wealth to us.... This is a total perversion of U.S. foreign policy practiced by every president since World War I. My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV."​

Maureen Dowd, another acerbic New York Times columnist, indicated that a draft dodger who tried to "upend" democracy had bullied a freedom fighter who sought help to protect real democracy.

Newly-elected Congressman and former National Security Council advisor Lt. Col. Eugene Vindman critiqued: ""Trump and JD Vance didn’t just berate Zelenskyy — they attempted to humiliate him. They mocked his country and bent over backward to appease Putin. Their behavior was despicable and un-American....Trump tried to strong-arm Zelenskyy into accepting a deal that would hand victory to Russia. And when Zelenskyy pushed back, Trump and Vance attacked him — publicly...Then Trump dropped the most chilling line of all: Zelenskyy was "gambling with WWIII."

A former European parliamentarian noted that “If only Republicans had a fraction of Zelensky’s courage" the struggle with Putin would be fairer. She then went on to say: "The US President meanwhile has removed any doubt that he is making the US an adversary to Europe.”

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier chose his comments with care: "The scene at the White House took my breath away. I would never have believed that we would ever have to defend Ukraine from the United States. Europe must stand with Ukraine, and prevent the country from having to accept subjugation.”

Trumpers may not immediately realize it, but Zelensky's battle in the White House strengthened his own standing as a democrat and as a hero of the anti-Putin resistance. He remains a standing symbol of freedom in the face of a joint Trump/Vance attempt to seduce his acquiescence to their selling Ukraine out to Putin. "We will fight on for Ukraine and Europe's sovereign independence," in effect he intimated clearly. He also rightfully regarded Ukraine's immense sacrifices a protection, ultimately, for the U.S. -- no matter how the ocean that separated Europe from the Americas ostensibly protected the U.S. from Putin's militarism.

Even Zelensky's opponents at home joined in praising his leadership and in condemning Trump's bullying: “Trump behaved disgustingly and condescendingly,” said Natalia Pipa, a member of Parliament for the Holos party.

That an American president is prepared, even encouraged by the likes of Musk, to abandon every meaningful principle of global diplomacy and sovereignty when confronted with Putin's ambitions to play imperial czar in today's post-imperial realm, is astounding, as well as being dangerous and sycophantic. Trump undermines his own desire to make America great, sells out Europe in favor consorting with dictators, and vastly harms any allied attempts to standup against destructive actions by China and Russia.

Has Trump really decided to march smartly to the other side, to join hands with Putin -- fake big man to fake big man -- while selling out Ukrainians in their trenches, in their nightly bombed cities, in their desperately diminished villages? What, I ask again, is Putin's secret hold over Trump that manifested itself in an unseemly ambush of Zelensky and allows Putin to gain leverage over the West?

In the United Nations General Assembly, Trump's representatives even voted against Ukraine with -- of all newly found allies -- Belarus, North Korea, and Russia! Later, in the UN Security Council, the U.S. abstained from voting on its own watered down critique of Russia's invasion when it was strengthened mildly by amendments. Are we intent on resurrecting Hooverism, Coolidgism, or reverting to the views of Charles Lindbergh?

There has to be an overarching design. Knowing how Trump positively purrs when he comes near despots, it may hardly be surprising that he tilts toward Putin -- even in the face of Europe's overwhelming backing for the valiant defense that Ukraine's outnumbered forces have been providing these three years against Russian aggression. Trump, Vance, and Musk show no signs of appreciating how much democracy in the world -- the global stand against communist threats to extinguish freedom everywhere -- depends on preserving Ukraine's integrity and celebrating its courage. Zelensky demonstrated that he was the man of the year, not so the wannabe mafia dons in Washington.

Instead, Trump and Vance seem determined to sell out both the Ukrainian people and the rest of Europe, plus NATO as an institution and NATO as a bulwark against encroaching communist dictatorship. That makes no sense at all except if they are both committed for financial (?) purposes to abandon everything for which Washington has always stood in the world, if they are intent on abandoning our closest allies, on reneging on sacred promises, and really decided on switching sides in today's titanic struggle to keep malevolent dictators from running the affairs of the world.

Then there is China. Xi Jinping is watching. If Putin can truly convert Trump into a sycophant -- a backer of the "evil empire" and its ultimate hegemonic design -- then, surely, the ultimate battle to keep the entire world from falling into totalitarian hands is lost. Taiwan will become part of China, even without combat, and dystopia will flourish across the planet in place of meaningful political participation and independent thinking.

Why have Trump and his acolytes gone over to the dark side? Some readers will say that that is where they have always been. But this awakened American fascism is new. Even the Republican Congresspersons who now echo Trump's appeasement of Putin and his unprecedented attacks on Zelensky once professed praise for Zelensky and Ukraine, celebrated his courage, and cheered to the rafters his opposition to Putin's invasion.

Has moral depravity really engulfed the White House and everyone who enters it? Are there no Sen. Margaret Chase Smiths in Congress to try to talk and walk back Trump as a palpable threat to world peace? Have they all fallen flatly and fearfully on their faces?

PS. I wish that I had space and your collective indulgence to write about all of the other dangerous idiocies emanating from today's Washington: the gutting of the National Park Service on the eve of the 150th anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, the unnecessary tariff wars with our closest neighbors and deepest friends, the removal of the leading non-partisan civil servants from the National Archives, and putting patsy journalists into the White House press pool instead of real scribes -- to name but a tiny handful of Trump regime unnecessary and slanted antagonisms.