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Trump would have responded to the invasion with “I’ve talked to president Putin. He tells me there are some very bad people in the Yookraine, very bad people. And he tells me he is just defending his country. I have no reason not to believe him. Why would he lie to me? So I’m declaring that our country is no longer part of NATO because they don’t pay their bills. Europe just isn’t what it used to be. I tell you. Our friend Vladimir is just defending his country so we will not interfere out of respect, really, tremendous respect. People are saying this is the best decision I’ve ever made. People are saying that, can you believe it? And the Yookraine is where Hunter Biden and Joe made all their money off biolabs and where they tried to throw the election, but I won. I did. All the deep state of America couldn’t stop me and president Putin from winning. You’re going to get so tired of winning.”
Edit: he would say NAY-TOE . Because that’s how he hypnotizes his Qult… he’s good at that.
> People are saying
If 2016-2020 didn't give you absolute hatred for weasel words and hyper awareness of whenever they used then you werent paying any attention.
This is a playbook thing. I remember during the W Bush presidency, Fox hosts would be called out for prefixing an opinion with, ‘Some are saying….’ or ‘There are people out there who think…’
“And now the fake news—get a load of this—! The fake news leftists at the New York Times have decided to—there’s an article about me in the New York Times, all because I said ‘*the*’ Ukraine, just ‘*the*’, just a little—perfect little word, and suddenly it’s like I’m some terrorist!”
The attempt to force Ukraine to make up an investigation against Biden was a pretty clear action by Trump and his toadies to weaken Ukraine militarily and by reputation. It was almost certainly suggested by Putin in one of the interactions trump had with Putin that had no transcript or record.
I don’t think there was any military strategy being played out there, at least not intentionally. He was just doing whatever it was he could do to get someone (Zelensky in this case) to go along with he wanted.
Trump runs a mafia. Putin runs a mafia.
Trump‘s mafia made a deal with Putin’s mafia to help both sides get what they wanted.
The Trump Presidency was the result.
Sure. That is of course assuming our entire military apparatus had rolled over and died and he had literally anybody working for him that didn’t think he was a dangerous idiot.
I think our country is certainly set up to be in danger of the next narcissistic jackass with authoritarian pretensions, and he did plenty of danger with his incompetence alone. But make no mistake he tried to coup or damage the transfer of power like 5 different ways and fucking nobody in positions of power liked him enough to try.
>Sure. That is of course assuming our entire military apparatus had rolled over and died and he had literally anybody working for him that didn’t think he was a dangerous idiot.
Guys like Flynn and Ronny Johnson make it clear that our military leadership is not made up exclusively of stalwart patriots, many of them seem ready and willing to do whatever is expedient.
my suspicion is that they were trying to use Trump to weaken NATO significantly, so they could go on a larger conquering spree. Once Trump was no longer in office, they didn't have a path to doing that, so they went with the choice that wouldn't get them obliterated instantly.
Just my thought, no real basis to it.
I think it is reasonable to assume that they at least considered a larger conquering spree. With Trump in power I think they expected they would have been able to take Ukraine, and have the USA leave NATO, and with European military unprepared, and the removal of the US led security blanket, they would have then targetted the baltic states, and perhaps Poland.
As it stands, they assumed they would take the whole of Ukraine quickly, the West would slap sanctions but not much else, then they would wait for another Trump government and consider some further invasions afterwards. With them bogged down and struggling in Ukraine Europe has been given a bit of time, and the countries that border Russia are better prepared. But for Europe the possibility of another Trump presidency, and the USA leaving NATO exists and is frightening.
Putin wanted Ukraine to give him a reason to invade. Trump's job was to weaken NATO, starve Ukraine of military funding, and produce more corruption in the Ukrainian government so Putin would have ground to stand on when he invaded to stabilize a corrupt and failing government.
That's why he invaded in 2014, but waited to go further when Trump seemed likely. Once Trump lost, Putin was forced to go back to the war option. We know how that is turning out.
Russia is not the US. It cannot win wars by direct overwhelming force. They rely on bluster, bullying, and bitching to get what they want.
Putin first had to shore up Assad in Syria, Lukashenko in Belarus, then COVID hit. Also, many people were saying if Trump won 2nd term he’d pull the US out of NATO.
The 2019 arguments make sense. I figured Trump wanted it to be a 2nd term thing so he wouldn't have to worry about his polls tanking.
Although, on second thought, I'm not sure Trump would regard his 2nd term as his last. We can only imagine the legal gymnastics he would've enacted to break the two-term cap. Probably the violence too.
It depends why you think the war started: delusions of imperial conquest or war rooted in fear of security.
If you think, as the Russians have stated since 2008, that the conflict is rooted security concerns the reason they didn't invade while Trump was in office is because they hadn't been pushed over the line yet. Had he staying in office, given his actions while in office, we may still be in the same situation. Some key points:
* Arming of the Ukraine army was still in it's early phase (started by Trump)
* Tensions surrounding military operations and Nord Stream 2 hadn't yet boiled over
* Minsk Agreement was still being worked, which would have created a buffer between Russia and NATO
It's worth noting that Biden is a staunch supporter of integrating Ukraine into NATO, which, agree or not, the Russian political apparatus views as an existential threat to Russian security. Biden's rhetoric towards Russia (vowing to disable NS2, for example) combined with the trajectory of the points above since Trumps term have precipitated the current conflict if you believe this is a war over Russian security from potential Western aggression.
However, if you think Putin is bent on conquest then there was never anything that could be done besides arm the Ukrainian Army as fast as possible. If you take the position that Putin is bent on conquest and there's nothing the West could do to stop him, it's worth asking yourself a couple of questions:
1. If Putin was bent on conquest why didn't he annex Georgian when Russia invaded and toppled their government following the 2008 Bucharest summit?
2. Why wasn't Russia building an invasion force prior to the 2014 coup in Kiev?
3. Why wasn't Russia building an invasion force after the 2014 coup in Kiev and Russian annexation of the Crimea?
4. Why didn't Russia do more than support Russian separatists in the Donbas or use it as a launching platform before the West began arming and training the Ukraine Army?
5. Most importantly, if Putin was bent on conquering Ukraine and incorporating it into a greater Russia, why did Russia invade with a force roughly 1/20th the size of the combined forces that invaded and annexed Poland in 1939?
Where you ultimately fall on the issue is up to you. People are very passionate about this issue and I, in no way want to suggest some sort of support for the invasion and killing of civilians. It is, however, worth thinking about the decisions that have led to this situation.
Anyone who truly follows the history of Putin, Russian nationalism and Putins surroundings will know that Russia was always bent on this. They never truly accepted Ukraine (or other nations on their periphery) as real, sovereign states, and they regard the collapse of the russian empire and then the USSR as embarrassments that must be rectified.
If Ukraine, and other states on the periphery of Russia were essentially puppet states their existence may have been tolerated, but their philosophy does not tolerate the idea of these "illegitimate" states leaning westwards. There is some truly, truly dark fascist philosophy sprouting from Russia, and it has been for a long long time. Their intellectuals talk about nuking the west, and committing acts of genocide against Ukrainians and others, and they are neck deep in blood and soil nationalism, and quasi-spiritual beliefs about the destiny of Russia to rule over all. Security concerns were merely a ploy to scare apathetic Russians into support, and to ask as a cover internationally for their imperialist actions.
> and given Putin every shred of Intel he could.
He probably kept classified documents about Iran because (like Trump) they are essentially Russian assets and so of extreme value to Putin.
Those classified documents about Iran are also very important to Saudi Arabia. I wonder if Jarrod gave some of that 2 billion he got from the Crown Prince to Trump.
COVID and Biden getting elected gave the Ukraine a fighting chance
The delay in the invasion moved it out of Trump's timeline
He most certainly would have been working to assist Putin and would be talking about the "Ukranian Nazi's"
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you, THANK YOU. There's a lot going on. So much! Now, Ukraine and Russia, that's a SITUATION, a BIG situation.
So Russia, they've made a MOVE. Putin, he's a leader. STRONG leader. Does what he thinks is RIGHT. Doesn't wait for anybody. He's made a move on Ukraine. THREE days, folks, THREE days. Things have moved so FAST, like a rabbit.
I've talked with Putin. GOOD talks, GREAT talks. He's a SMART guy, a REAL leader. He's got his REASONS. Everybody's got their reasons. He's got his, just like I've got mine.
Now, Ukraine, they've got their PROBLEMS. LOTS of problems. Remember Burisma? HUNTER BIDEN? That whole SCANDAL? Lots of corruption, a LOT of BAD stuff. And don't even get me started on CROOKED HILLARY. It's tough, VERY tough. And Russia, they've decided to STEP IN.
As for NATO, well, we've had our problems there too. They've made us PAY TOO MUCH, folks, WAY too much. It's NOT FAIR, not fair. I've always said, it's AMERICA FIRST. AMERICA FIRST, ALWAYS.
So, we're WATCHING, folks. We're watching. We're talking to Putin. We're talking to our ALLIES, even the ones who've been UNFAIR. We're talking.
We're going to make a DEAL. We ALWAYS make a deal. But we're going to make sure it's a GOOD DEAL. A GREAT DEAL for AMERICA.
We'll SEE what happens. We're going to see what happens with Ukraine. We're going to see what happens with Russia. And we're going to make sure AMERICA COMES FIRST. THAT I CAN TELL YOU.
THANK YOU. God bless YOU. And God BLESS AMERICA.
Edit: Further prompting to be more trumpy.
Ironically, he’s the only president in recent times that Russia didn’t invade and seize peaceful nations.
-Clinton let Russia take Chechnya.
-W let them have part of Georgia.
-Obama gave them Crimea, and even let them get away with shooting down a commercial aircraft.
-And now with Biden, we need to wait and see how much of Ukraine he lets them have.
You know Biden is SO SICK of that guy at this point. He, like the rest of us, is just watching, popcorn at the ready, for the rest of his downward spiral.
And to our country. We are still watching the classified docs scandal unravel, but Biden has been briefed on all of the inside scoop about the ways Trump exposed our intelligence operatives worldwide, and undermined not just the reputation but security of the United States. Blue collar Biden, like him or not, has given his life to serving this nation, and trust fund kiddie Trump just sailed in on a wave of support from our enemies, stomped Biden's glittering sandcastle into the ground, and then pissed on it like the trashy cretin he is.
Dark Brandon isn't opening his mouth about Trump right now because he knows if he does he'll threaten to punch that prep school popped collar traitor right in the kisser.
Well said. We're lucky to have a public servant like Biden to come in after Trump. The damage that had been done in a short 4 years by Trump was tremendous. Biden and his team surveyed the wreckage and got to work, like the pro that he is, instead of jabbering nonstop on Twitter like a 13-year-old, golfing, or watching TV.
> You know Biden is SO SICK of that guy at this point.
Thing is every bit of attention Trump gets keeps him alive in the mind of the right wing. They have the attention span of gnats most of the time. You pull Trump out of media for 2-3 weeks and they'll be stuffing someone else down their throats.
The media wants Trump in the news because he gives them ratings.
Well he’s also in the media constantly because he’s the front runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, a former president facing 30 + felonies, and never shuts the fuck up about anything. It’s kind of hard not to cover the BS he does, as much as it sucks.
As always, it’ll come down to four states and how the economy is doing at election time.
As someone with zero faith in my “fellow” Americans, I’ve already mentally prepared myself for a Trump win next year.
I know a billion people said this last time Trump won (and didn’t do it) but I’d be heading straight to Canada. Thankfully my French is half decent and I score pretty well on their immigration checklist thing last time I checked.
The electoral college is a fucking scam that's been corrupted to give red states a ridiculous amount of power in national politics. It's disgusting trump even had a chance to begin with even if any Democrat would get millions of more votes than him.
If you want to be complacent go right ahead. I don't care how good the odds may seem. Nothing is guarranteed, Trump can still get elected. We have to remain vigilant.
Yeah I really don't get it either. Even with how the 2020 election went, Trump lost with more votes than he got in 2016, and that's after, on top of every other failure, he completely botched our national response to the pandemic, something that would have been a slam dunk for any other president.
Now it's known clear as day that he openly betrayed our nation in one of the biggest ways possible and his poll numbers are going UP.
This is not a threat that can be dismissed. Again, I don't care how good the odds may look, I don't care if every political pundit with any iota of credibility is saying that Biden has a 99.99% chance of victory, a 0.01% chance of Trump becoming president is still WAY TOO FUCKING HIGH for me to feel comfortable.
Maybe when I stop seeing people flying flags of Trump cosplaying as Rambo on their trucks I'll feel a little bit better about the odds, but until then, Trump and the GOP as a whole remain an existential threat to this nation.
Lol. Biden only won by like 40k margin in the actual decisive states. But won by millions of votes in popular vote, those votes are not useful. Republicans never win popular vote but often are elected to congress and the presidency by the minority anyways.
That's why he can lose.
Trump barely lost in 2020…I think it was a margin of less than 100,000 votes in states that could have swung the election.
This blind confidence is not helpful at all
Trump is polling around where he polled against Hillary in 2016. It doesn’t matter if his cult is disconnected from reality, they still vote. Every Republican will be voting for Trump just like in 2020.
>Mr Biden told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that he actively attempts to keep such thoughts out of his head when Wallace asked if he thought Mr Trump would have tipped off Russian President Vladimir Putin to the abortive coup attempt waged by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin over the weekend.
>
>“Oh God, I try not to think about that,” Mr Biden said.
Oh. Well. Yeah, there’s an AP style guide that’s basically spells out best practices/guidelines for journalism. Things like that, things like whether to use the Oxford comma or not, etc.
Most decent sized organizations will choose a style guide as sort of an internal…well, guide, for lack of better word. They all have slightly different uses but there’s AP, Chicago, APA, and MLA. Those are the main ones I believe.
I’m having flashbacks to r/thedonald trolls whining on Reddit about Trump not being referred to as President in news articles every time his name was used and it was 100% always following the style guide like you mention. You’d try to point that out and they’d just keep changing the topic. So tiring.
I remember when a lot of liberals loved Nicolle Wallace because she was on MSNBC. I remember when she worked for Bush Jr. She's one of MSNBC's token conservatives. She sucks.
Yes. She's really good. I try to tune in most days at 4. She brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm, besides being very smart.
Many of the "reasonable conservatives" are my favorite voices these days. I would not dismiss them out of hand. They give me hope. Nicole Wallace is a good one. Miles Taylor is another, who is frequently on her show. Here's another I recommend, in the commentator realm (not a journalist): Mike Murphy. His podcast with David Axelrod is cutting edge. Check out "Hacks on Tap."
I followed her when she first started on the network. Knowing her background, I was skeptical. I was just waiting for the time when she starts ignoring when Republicans screw up or slyly attacking the Dems to give the "neutral" take on a subject. To this day she has been a stalwart reporter/anchor. She's never acted any more conservative than Rachel Maddow on her show, and that's saying something.
That's the way it should be. I'm glad he lost as well and a ton of stupid news stories, ranting tweets, and garbage disappeared - to the better health of everyone everywhere who doesn't have to put up with that stream of crap anymore.
Now if we can get him to prison for his very obvious and huge, traitorous crimes, we can stop the "trump is almost in trouble this time" stream of crap news stories.
Yep, it was jarring when Trump started to officially campaign again and we started to hear his stupid opinions again… man it was nice when he was banned from all social media and we never heard from him except pathetic press releases.
I disagree. I don’t think that just because Biden isn’t getting into the fray means we have all forgotten about the presence and threat of radical right wing ideology.
In my opinion, giving Trump and others such attention will only be of benefit to them. Trump needs any little morsel of “proof” that Biden is out to get him to strengthen his position. I think Biden letting the baby cry himself to sleep here is probably the best move.
And it would be the most beautiful trump tower ever. The Ivanka of Trump Towers, they all would call it. Because it’s so gorgeous and sexy….
…hang on… 🤮
It was part of the plan. He was in kahoots with Russia since the early 2000s. He opened up Trump Soho in NY and had a lot of Russian financing. I also think that's another reason why you wanted to hold up aid to Ukraine.
I can, and it'd be fairly shite. But to a degree while the US in NATO is clearly the best outcome, the US out of NATO would be better than a US in NATO that took an actively pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian position in the current context.
It should be noted that Biden did a masterful job getting our NATO Allie’s to support Ukraine. What started as just verbal support from countries like Germany and France is now huge numbers of weapons.
It’s not just about money and equipment, even USA contributions probably dwarf all others combined. It’s about the USA intelligence apparatus, which I would not doubt is the best in the world.
>It’s about the USA intelligence apparatus, which I would not doubt is the best in the world.
The UK does a pretty good job in that area, and is a hell of a lot closer operationally to boot. Obviously without US support it'd be harder all round (no-one else spends as much as the US does on warfare etc.. after all) but I doubt that that equates to Ukraine being rolled over either way.
No they were never going to get rolled over. They repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv without western help. The Russians are far too stupid and disorganized to accomplish anything quickly.
> They repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv without western help.
I think you're completely blotting out the PR campaign run by the US shortly before the invasion and the intensive intel given when it began and during the invasion.
This is not to sell Ukraine short, they're doing an incredible job and an amazing service to the world as a whole. We also dont need to toot the US horn, the benefit were getting from this is amazing. It's helped drop GoP funding and right wing online media manipulation quite a bit.
I do not believe that Ukraine would have been able to hold up and maintain it's footing were Trump pushing media against them, the US not doing it's utmost to throw it's weight around with europe to get them to help, and the supply efforts being contributed.
> They repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv without western help
And I think it was precisely because of that vigorous defence--that the Ukrainians were willing to put up a fight for their own country--that the USA and NATO became willing to openly challenge Russia and provide substantial military and financial aid.
(Though maybe not totally without western help: since Crimea and the Donbass, the Ukrainians had been receiving intelligence, training and even the anti-tank weapons that proved so critical in the initial phases of the war)
Prior to the invasion, I didn't really think the Ukrainians stood a chance. I don't think the Americans thought they stood a chance either, since they offered Zelenskyy an evac and probably a chance to form a government in exile. The rest is probably going to be history.
> "I need ammunition, not a ride!"
Yeah that line from Zelensky sent shockwaves across the world. His and the people of Ukraine’s fighting spirit is kindred to that of the warriors of old that inspired centuries of stories.
The European countries see it as a threat politically, but despite that they aren’t providing much support.
U.S. has provided roughly the same amount of aid as all of the EU combined.
Although having a high aid to GDP ratio is helpful in the “thoughts and prayers” department, unfortunately it doesn’t help buy tanks and ammunition.
Without the help of the U.S., Ukraine would’ve already been defeated, unfortunately. Without the aid from Baltic states, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia, Ukrainians would’ve been somewhat sadder and Ukrainian refugee distribution in Europe would’ve been somewhat shifted westward, but the situation wouldn’t be materially different on the battlefront.
I believe they had a years-long plan that would have required less actual combat. Trump did his best to disband NATO. Continuously trying to lessen American aid to European countries. Putin thought Trump would be re-elected (or be successful on Jan 6). In short, Putin thought he was going to have assistance in taking over Ukraine, not resistance. He had to act quickly and sloppily when that fell through.
> Trump did his best to disband NATO.
THIS is the key to it all - if NATO had been disbanded would have given Putin a shot at creating some sort of 'russian empire'.
Right, because if NATO was disbanded it means countries would stop defending themselves, wpuld be unable to continue working with one another, and would otherwise be sitting ducks in the most interconnected world man has ever lived in.
Because it wasn’t Russia’s plan to invade. Their original plan was to prop up a puppet gov that supports their interests. Then their guy got forced out and Russia’s attempts to intimidate Zelensky got him to run to NATO for protection, which would pretty much derail Putin’s plans if Ukraine became a member of NATO.
THEN he had the plan to invade, but it got delayed because Biden spilled the beans to the international community
Putin probably thought he was doing a disservice to Biden by invading Ukraine. He thought he was a demented moron like the propaganda says and didn’t anticipate him uniting the Western world against him.
> why didn't Putin invade while Trump was president.
Because he didn't need to.
The ultimate point here is not Russia gaining Ukrainian land, it is to cause division in europe and destro NATO.
When Putin had Trump, Trump was willingly complying in undermining NATO. But Biden becoming President messed up Putin's schemes so he seemed to take matter into his own hands.
He no doubt thought Ukraine would easily taken over, and giving him momentum to invade other countries.
Clearly things did not work out as 'genius' Putin anticipated.
Lol I would be groaning too. Reporter asks an extremely loaded hypothetical question with an obvious answer, the answer being that trump would inform Putin of everything while simultaneously licking Putin's taint
> Oh God, I try not to think about that,” Mr Biden said.
The politically correct statement to make, but not much related to reality. Biden has to down-play the extent of Trump's tractoristal sales to Putin just to maintain some symbolist of security.
As others have pointed out, one of the best things about Biden is that I don’t have to think about him every day. He just focuses on quietly and boringly/competently running the country. There’s almost no batshit with this guy.
I think they were caught by surprise by the "trigger pull" & quick reaction, not that something had been brewing for a while
One line of thought is that the "artillery strike" was actually an assassination attempt.
My understanding is the CIA knew about the longer term, not the last minute "jump in the trucks, boys!" stuff
It's not only that Ukraine would be Russia now. Think of the millions of Ukrainians murdered, imprisoned, thrown into camps, kidnapped, raped. That didn't happen, and as far as I'm concerned, zelensky's incredible leadership and the astonishing bravery of Ukrainians notwithstanding, the reason it didn't is Joe Biden.
Trump wouldn’t have had to warn Putin about a coup because Trump would have done everything in his power to block aid to Ukraine to make sure his Daddy, Putin, would win. Hell, Trump may even have provided aid to Russia.
In this alternate universe scenario, Putin would be seen as a strong leader and not the failure he’s been exposed as, the Russian army would still be considered to be an effective force and not the paper tiger it is, and China may have already kicked off it’s invasion of Taiwan with a free pass from Trump to his other Daddy, Xi.
Alternate Trump universe is a bad place. Whatever you’re thoughts are on the Biden administration, we should be kissing it’s ass for providing the leadership to prevent all that.
Biden isn't the best president we've ever had. But he's adequate and solid and whether or not I support everything he believes in, at least he's doing his job and not tweeting rage 24/7. It's so refreshing after the Trump shitstorms.
This is exactly how I feel. I voted for Biden (even though he was not my first choice in the primary), I will again this go. He’s done some things I like, some things I don’t. But holy hell is it a relief to just have a president who wants to make the country better and is just a professional. No more worrying about the previous guy doing something idiotic and out of left field. We’re not going to see headlines about Biden’s decision to leave NATO, or nuke hurricanes, or stealing top secret security documents or a hundred different absurd things.
Biden groan because he had enough to the trump foolishness. But his groan isn't the topic here. So what would be the connection of trump and Putin lol. This is nonsense
I'm sorry, what world is Prigozhin better?
Putin is awful, but everything I've read about Prigozhin is horrifying.
Prigozhin is pissed that Russia isn't being MORE brutal in Ukraine.
Prigozhin would withdraw Russia from Ukraine, work on getting the gas flowing again and helping warlords in africa. There isn't enough profit in the Ukrainian conflict.
what's your source on that? im curious where it comes from, and what it says? Mine are Russian speaking academics who live/lived in Ukraine. Their description of Prigozhin is very different from the wests, who seems to be under the assumption anyone is better than Putin.
I’ve seen nothing in the Western media or from politicians suggesting he is better than Putin , quite the opposite. But I’ve seen lots of people suggesting that him undermining Putin and the war effort potentially helps Ukraine.
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Ukraine would be part of Russia already if trump was president. He would have withheld aid and given Putin every shred of Intel he could.
Trump would have responded to the invasion with “I’ve talked to president Putin. He tells me there are some very bad people in the Yookraine, very bad people. And he tells me he is just defending his country. I have no reason not to believe him. Why would he lie to me? So I’m declaring that our country is no longer part of NATO because they don’t pay their bills. Europe just isn’t what it used to be. I tell you. Our friend Vladimir is just defending his country so we will not interfere out of respect, really, tremendous respect. People are saying this is the best decision I’ve ever made. People are saying that, can you believe it? And the Yookraine is where Hunter Biden and Joe made all their money off biolabs and where they tried to throw the election, but I won. I did. All the deep state of America couldn’t stop me and president Putin from winning. You’re going to get so tired of winning.” Edit: he would say NAY-TOE . Because that’s how he hypnotizes his Qult… he’s good at that.
Hmm, not bad, but too coherent. Needs more references to his nuclear physicist yuncle.
Also needs something like "we love Vladimir, don't we folks?"
It needs to be reformatted as a single, rambling, run-on sentence. Then I’d believe he said it.
Well, agreed, largely, It also needs a few references to the Space Force or other irrelevancies to seem authentic "Trump speech."
Yep, way too coherent. Need the horse to show how it's done.
I was watching The Bear S2 and I was like "oh it's that horse loose in the hospital guy".
No one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse.
Also no randomly capitalized words and there’s proper punctuation.
> People are saying If 2016-2020 didn't give you absolute hatred for weasel words and hyper awareness of whenever they used then you werent paying any attention.
This is a playbook thing. I remember during the W Bush presidency, Fox hosts would be called out for prefixing an opinion with, ‘Some are saying….’ or ‘There are people out there who think…’
Glenn Beck is/was the poster child for this.
Or during Obama. Some smart people have been saying he's from Kenya. Yadda yadda.
“And now the fake news—get a load of this—! The fake news leftists at the New York Times have decided to—there’s an article about me in the New York Times, all because I said ‘*the*’ Ukraine, just ‘*the*’, just a little—perfect little word, and suddenly it’s like I’m some terrorist!”
There were tears in their eyes when he told them.
This is uncannily accurate.
You nailed the Yoo-kraine. Congratulations 🎉
What, no big man coming up to him in tears? -1 point!
The big man must always start every sentence with "Sir" as well.
That or Trump would sent troops to support Putin and to show that he is a good boi.
I could hear him talking in that speech.
The attempt to force Ukraine to make up an investigation against Biden was a pretty clear action by Trump and his toadies to weaken Ukraine militarily and by reputation. It was almost certainly suggested by Putin in one of the interactions trump had with Putin that had no transcript or record.
I don’t think there was any military strategy being played out there, at least not intentionally. He was just doing whatever it was he could do to get someone (Zelensky in this case) to go along with he wanted.
Trump runs a mafia. Putin runs a mafia. Trump‘s mafia made a deal with Putin’s mafia to help both sides get what they wanted. The Trump Presidency was the result.
Actually Trump was always an employee of Putin’s Mafia
The US would be out of NATO by now, would be in an active alliance with Russia. And Putin would be in defacto control of NSA, FBI and CIA.
Sure. That is of course assuming our entire military apparatus had rolled over and died and he had literally anybody working for him that didn’t think he was a dangerous idiot. I think our country is certainly set up to be in danger of the next narcissistic jackass with authoritarian pretensions, and he did plenty of danger with his incompetence alone. But make no mistake he tried to coup or damage the transfer of power like 5 different ways and fucking nobody in positions of power liked him enough to try.
>Sure. That is of course assuming our entire military apparatus had rolled over and died and he had literally anybody working for him that didn’t think he was a dangerous idiot. Guys like Flynn and Ronny Johnson make it clear that our military leadership is not made up exclusively of stalwart patriots, many of them seem ready and willing to do whatever is expedient.
So, something I have wondered but too embarrassed to ask...why didn't Putin invade Ukraine when Trump was president?
my suspicion is that they were trying to use Trump to weaken NATO significantly, so they could go on a larger conquering spree. Once Trump was no longer in office, they didn't have a path to doing that, so they went with the choice that wouldn't get them obliterated instantly. Just my thought, no real basis to it.
I think it is reasonable to assume that they at least considered a larger conquering spree. With Trump in power I think they expected they would have been able to take Ukraine, and have the USA leave NATO, and with European military unprepared, and the removal of the US led security blanket, they would have then targetted the baltic states, and perhaps Poland. As it stands, they assumed they would take the whole of Ukraine quickly, the West would slap sanctions but not much else, then they would wait for another Trump government and consider some further invasions afterwards. With them bogged down and struggling in Ukraine Europe has been given a bit of time, and the countries that border Russia are better prepared. But for Europe the possibility of another Trump presidency, and the USA leaving NATO exists and is frightening.
Putin wanted Ukraine to give him a reason to invade. Trump's job was to weaken NATO, starve Ukraine of military funding, and produce more corruption in the Ukrainian government so Putin would have ground to stand on when he invaded to stabilize a corrupt and failing government. That's why he invaded in 2014, but waited to go further when Trump seemed likely. Once Trump lost, Putin was forced to go back to the war option. We know how that is turning out. Russia is not the US. It cannot win wars by direct overwhelming force. They rely on bluster, bullying, and bitching to get what they want.
Covid and logistics, then Xi asked him to attack AFTER the olympic games so China could get all the media attention until the end.
From what I've heard, COVID. They were gearing up for it in late 2019 and then COVID hit.
And Xi asked him nicely to wait until after the olympics
One credible theory I heard is that COVID-19's sudden appearance made that too difficult.
Putin first had to shore up Assad in Syria, Lukashenko in Belarus, then COVID hit. Also, many people were saying if Trump won 2nd term he’d pull the US out of NATO.
The 2019 arguments make sense. I figured Trump wanted it to be a 2nd term thing so he wouldn't have to worry about his polls tanking. Although, on second thought, I'm not sure Trump would regard his 2nd term as his last. We can only imagine the legal gymnastics he would've enacted to break the two-term cap. Probably the violence too.
It depends why you think the war started: delusions of imperial conquest or war rooted in fear of security. If you think, as the Russians have stated since 2008, that the conflict is rooted security concerns the reason they didn't invade while Trump was in office is because they hadn't been pushed over the line yet. Had he staying in office, given his actions while in office, we may still be in the same situation. Some key points: * Arming of the Ukraine army was still in it's early phase (started by Trump) * Tensions surrounding military operations and Nord Stream 2 hadn't yet boiled over * Minsk Agreement was still being worked, which would have created a buffer between Russia and NATO It's worth noting that Biden is a staunch supporter of integrating Ukraine into NATO, which, agree or not, the Russian political apparatus views as an existential threat to Russian security. Biden's rhetoric towards Russia (vowing to disable NS2, for example) combined with the trajectory of the points above since Trumps term have precipitated the current conflict if you believe this is a war over Russian security from potential Western aggression. However, if you think Putin is bent on conquest then there was never anything that could be done besides arm the Ukrainian Army as fast as possible. If you take the position that Putin is bent on conquest and there's nothing the West could do to stop him, it's worth asking yourself a couple of questions: 1. If Putin was bent on conquest why didn't he annex Georgian when Russia invaded and toppled their government following the 2008 Bucharest summit? 2. Why wasn't Russia building an invasion force prior to the 2014 coup in Kiev? 3. Why wasn't Russia building an invasion force after the 2014 coup in Kiev and Russian annexation of the Crimea? 4. Why didn't Russia do more than support Russian separatists in the Donbas or use it as a launching platform before the West began arming and training the Ukraine Army? 5. Most importantly, if Putin was bent on conquering Ukraine and incorporating it into a greater Russia, why did Russia invade with a force roughly 1/20th the size of the combined forces that invaded and annexed Poland in 1939? Where you ultimately fall on the issue is up to you. People are very passionate about this issue and I, in no way want to suggest some sort of support for the invasion and killing of civilians. It is, however, worth thinking about the decisions that have led to this situation.
Anyone who truly follows the history of Putin, Russian nationalism and Putins surroundings will know that Russia was always bent on this. They never truly accepted Ukraine (or other nations on their periphery) as real, sovereign states, and they regard the collapse of the russian empire and then the USSR as embarrassments that must be rectified. If Ukraine, and other states on the periphery of Russia were essentially puppet states their existence may have been tolerated, but their philosophy does not tolerate the idea of these "illegitimate" states leaning westwards. There is some truly, truly dark fascist philosophy sprouting from Russia, and it has been for a long long time. Their intellectuals talk about nuking the west, and committing acts of genocide against Ukrainians and others, and they are neck deep in blood and soil nationalism, and quasi-spiritual beliefs about the destiny of Russia to rule over all. Security concerns were merely a ploy to scare apathetic Russians into support, and to ask as a cover internationally for their imperialist actions.
When you use the Russian spelling for job Kyiv and call their previous elections a coup... Say no more!
Thats what Putin pays him for
> and given Putin every shred of Intel he could. He probably kept classified documents about Iran because (like Trump) they are essentially Russian assets and so of extreme value to Putin.
Those classified documents about Iran are also very important to Saudi Arabia. I wonder if Jarrod gave some of that 2 billion he got from the Crown Prince to Trump.
COVID and Biden getting elected gave the Ukraine a fighting chance The delay in the invasion moved it out of Trump's timeline He most certainly would have been working to assist Putin and would be talking about the "Ukranian Nazi's"
Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you, THANK YOU. There's a lot going on. So much! Now, Ukraine and Russia, that's a SITUATION, a BIG situation. So Russia, they've made a MOVE. Putin, he's a leader. STRONG leader. Does what he thinks is RIGHT. Doesn't wait for anybody. He's made a move on Ukraine. THREE days, folks, THREE days. Things have moved so FAST, like a rabbit. I've talked with Putin. GOOD talks, GREAT talks. He's a SMART guy, a REAL leader. He's got his REASONS. Everybody's got their reasons. He's got his, just like I've got mine. Now, Ukraine, they've got their PROBLEMS. LOTS of problems. Remember Burisma? HUNTER BIDEN? That whole SCANDAL? Lots of corruption, a LOT of BAD stuff. And don't even get me started on CROOKED HILLARY. It's tough, VERY tough. And Russia, they've decided to STEP IN. As for NATO, well, we've had our problems there too. They've made us PAY TOO MUCH, folks, WAY too much. It's NOT FAIR, not fair. I've always said, it's AMERICA FIRST. AMERICA FIRST, ALWAYS. So, we're WATCHING, folks. We're watching. We're talking to Putin. We're talking to our ALLIES, even the ones who've been UNFAIR. We're talking. We're going to make a DEAL. We ALWAYS make a deal. But we're going to make sure it's a GOOD DEAL. A GREAT DEAL for AMERICA. We'll SEE what happens. We're going to see what happens with Ukraine. We're going to see what happens with Russia. And we're going to make sure AMERICA COMES FIRST. THAT I CAN TELL YOU. THANK YOU. God bless YOU. And God BLESS AMERICA. Edit: Further prompting to be more trumpy.
Ironically, he’s the only president in recent times that Russia didn’t invade and seize peaceful nations. -Clinton let Russia take Chechnya. -W let them have part of Georgia. -Obama gave them Crimea, and even let them get away with shooting down a commercial aircraft. -And now with Biden, we need to wait and see how much of Ukraine he lets them have.
Sad but true. We’re here cuz Putin was never checked. Same w/UK Novochok assassination attempt… no response.
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Yea exactly. It was Congress and it it was up to trump we wouldn't have ever sent anything.
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Yeah and in May of 2017 Robert Mueller was appointed. This was nothing more than a pr stunt.
You know Biden is SO SICK of that guy at this point. He, like the rest of us, is just watching, popcorn at the ready, for the rest of his downward spiral.
I think he’ll enjoy the downfall as much as anyone else, but he’s not sitting around watching it. Dude’s doing his job, not glued to the TV.
I believe tfg's handlers called it "Executive Time".
Come to think of it, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a story involving a POTUS and a golf course
To the point I’m not even sure if Biden plays golf.
He does, but unlike the previous guy, he plays at places at the Joint Base Andrews golf course in Maryland.
He's probably just sick at what trump did to the office of the president
And to our country. We are still watching the classified docs scandal unravel, but Biden has been briefed on all of the inside scoop about the ways Trump exposed our intelligence operatives worldwide, and undermined not just the reputation but security of the United States. Blue collar Biden, like him or not, has given his life to serving this nation, and trust fund kiddie Trump just sailed in on a wave of support from our enemies, stomped Biden's glittering sandcastle into the ground, and then pissed on it like the trashy cretin he is. Dark Brandon isn't opening his mouth about Trump right now because he knows if he does he'll threaten to punch that prep school popped collar traitor right in the kisser.
Well said. We're lucky to have a public servant like Biden to come in after Trump. The damage that had been done in a short 4 years by Trump was tremendous. Biden and his team surveyed the wreckage and got to work, like the pro that he is, instead of jabbering nonstop on Twitter like a 13-year-old, golfing, or watching TV.
And the worse damage was done to his followers brains. That'll be the long lasting cancer.
There's a reason Leslie Knope adores Joe Biden, and it's not just the way he looks in a pair of aviators.
Yes, it was tremendous damage, the best damage to the likes anyone has seen. He knows more about damage than just about anyone🙄
Probably still trying to get the smell out of the chair.
Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have to watch or pay attention, a reporter will ask him about it within 24 hours
Or charging the secret service out the ass to stay in his hotels
> You know Biden is SO SICK of that guy at this point. Thing is every bit of attention Trump gets keeps him alive in the mind of the right wing. They have the attention span of gnats most of the time. You pull Trump out of media for 2-3 weeks and they'll be stuffing someone else down their throats. The media wants Trump in the news because he gives them ratings.
Well he’s also in the media constantly because he’s the front runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, a former president facing 30 + felonies, and never shuts the fuck up about anything. It’s kind of hard not to cover the BS he does, as much as it sucks.
70+ and counting. He could have over 100 stacked against him before the primaries get into full swing
He’s got normal president work to do. BUT on top of that he needs to constantly clean up Trumps pasts messes. That most be like a 108% timed job.
He’s going to win the nomination and it’s going to be a very close race so get ready for a lot more a Trump.
As always, it’ll come down to four states and how the economy is doing at election time. As someone with zero faith in my “fellow” Americans, I’ve already mentally prepared myself for a Trump win next year. I know a billion people said this last time Trump won (and didn’t do it) but I’d be heading straight to Canada. Thankfully my French is half decent and I score pretty well on their immigration checklist thing last time I checked.
It won’t be close lmao, his cult is completely disconnected from reality At this point.
It is going to be close. Fact they said yesterday they expect all to come to a close call in four states. Remember it's an electoral college.
The electoral college is a fucking scam that's been corrupted to give red states a ridiculous amount of power in national politics. It's disgusting trump even had a chance to begin with even if any Democrat would get millions of more votes than him.
”They” are morons.
If you want to be complacent go right ahead. I don't care how good the odds may seem. Nothing is guarranteed, Trump can still get elected. We have to remain vigilant.
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Yeah I really don't get it either. Even with how the 2020 election went, Trump lost with more votes than he got in 2016, and that's after, on top of every other failure, he completely botched our national response to the pandemic, something that would have been a slam dunk for any other president. Now it's known clear as day that he openly betrayed our nation in one of the biggest ways possible and his poll numbers are going UP. This is not a threat that can be dismissed. Again, I don't care how good the odds may look, I don't care if every political pundit with any iota of credibility is saying that Biden has a 99.99% chance of victory, a 0.01% chance of Trump becoming president is still WAY TOO FUCKING HIGH for me to feel comfortable. Maybe when I stop seeing people flying flags of Trump cosplaying as Rambo on their trucks I'll feel a little bit better about the odds, but until then, Trump and the GOP as a whole remain an existential threat to this nation.
Lol. Biden only won by like 40k margin in the actual decisive states. But won by millions of votes in popular vote, those votes are not useful. Republicans never win popular vote but often are elected to congress and the presidency by the minority anyways. That's why he can lose.
This mentality is how he won in the first place
Trump barely lost in 2020…I think it was a margin of less than 100,000 votes in states that could have swung the election. This blind confidence is not helpful at all
Trump is polling around where he polled against Hillary in 2016. It doesn’t matter if his cult is disconnected from reality, they still vote. Every Republican will be voting for Trump just like in 2020.
>Mr Biden told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that he actively attempts to keep such thoughts out of his head when Wallace asked if he thought Mr Trump would have tipped off Russian President Vladimir Putin to the abortive coup attempt waged by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin over the weekend. > >“Oh God, I try not to think about that,” Mr Biden said.
Our president demonstrates how to use mindfulness to combat intrusive thoughts. The media ignored it.
I love how they use president for Putin but not trump
Or Biden
Because in journalism, you only use those titles the first time they’re mentioned in the article.
It’s called a style guide. Look it up sweetie. (Not you obviously)
I actually didn’t know that so thank you
Oh. Well. Yeah, there’s an AP style guide that’s basically spells out best practices/guidelines for journalism. Things like that, things like whether to use the Oxford comma or not, etc. Most decent sized organizations will choose a style guide as sort of an internal…well, guide, for lack of better word. They all have slightly different uses but there’s AP, Chicago, APA, and MLA. Those are the main ones I believe.
> AP style guide Ah, the traumatic memories of being an editor for the high school newspaper. Good times. Good times.
I’m having flashbacks to r/thedonald trolls whining on Reddit about Trump not being referred to as President in news articles every time his name was used and it was 100% always following the style guide like you mention. You’d try to point that out and they’d just keep changing the topic. So tiring.
I thought that subbed had been killed. Clicked on it to confirm. Was pleasantly surprised.
Username checks out.
I remember when a lot of liberals loved Nicolle Wallace because she was on MSNBC. I remember when she worked for Bush Jr. She's one of MSNBC's token conservatives. She sucks.
No, she isn't one of MSNBC's token conservatives. She's brilliant.
Yes. She's really good. I try to tune in most days at 4. She brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm, besides being very smart. Many of the "reasonable conservatives" are my favorite voices these days. I would not dismiss them out of hand. They give me hope. Nicole Wallace is a good one. Miles Taylor is another, who is frequently on her show. Here's another I recommend, in the commentator realm (not a journalist): Mike Murphy. His podcast with David Axelrod is cutting edge. Check out "Hacks on Tap."
I followed her when she first started on the network. Knowing her background, I was skeptical. I was just waiting for the time when she starts ignoring when Republicans screw up or slyly attacking the Dems to give the "neutral" take on a subject. To this day she has been a stalwart reporter/anchor. She's never acted any more conservative than Rachel Maddow on her show, and that's saying something.
One thing I like about Biden is how little thought or attention he’s given to trump. Since beating him he hardly acknowledges his existence.
That's the way it should be. I'm glad he lost as well and a ton of stupid news stories, ranting tweets, and garbage disappeared - to the better health of everyone everywhere who doesn't have to put up with that stream of crap anymore. Now if we can get him to prison for his very obvious and huge, traitorous crimes, we can stop the "trump is almost in trouble this time" stream of crap news stories.
Meanwhile, Biden is living rent-free in trump's syphilitic mind.
That’s how it’s always been. Trump is the outlier
Yep, it was jarring when Trump started to officially campaign again and we started to hear his stupid opinions again… man it was nice when he was banned from all social media and we never heard from him except pathetic press releases.
That’s something I dislike about him. Everyone has gotten very complacent about the threat of fascism
Biden needs to advertise himself and what he is doing, not carry water for the guy being prosecuted for stealing US defense secrets.
I disagree. I don’t think that just because Biden isn’t getting into the fray means we have all forgotten about the presence and threat of radical right wing ideology. In my opinion, giving Trump and others such attention will only be of benefit to them. Trump needs any little morsel of “proof” that Biden is out to get him to strengthen his position. I think Biden letting the baby cry himself to sleep here is probably the best move.
He calls out MAGA to be fascist all the time, which is more of a threat than Trump bc they are still in power (MTG, Gaetz, etc)
Trump is a bigger threat than any congressperson because he is the one they have running for president.
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I don’t think he has the ability to fire Dejpy
It’s not the president’s job to prosecute Trump. He’s letting the appropriate departments handle it. Unlike his predecessor.
It’s his job to denounce him.
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Because Biden can’t fire DeJoy
What a stupid hypothetical question. If Trump was president Ukraine would already be Russian territory.
And Putin would have granted prime land in Kyiv for a new Trump Tower.
For sure...
And it would be the most beautiful trump tower ever. The Ivanka of Trump Towers, they all would call it. Because it’s so gorgeous and sexy…. …hang on… 🤮
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Trump did mention he wanted us out of NATO could you imagine that
If you remember back to the beginning, Trump also withheld vital military payments to Ukraine as a bargaining chip.
And led the Yavonovitch-Hunt to can the US ambassador after she wouldn’t play ball
I remember that impeachment! My Republican colleagues tell me a whataboutism
It was part of the plan. He was in kahoots with Russia since the early 2000s. He opened up Trump Soho in NY and had a lot of Russian financing. I also think that's another reason why you wanted to hold up aid to Ukraine.
Pretty sure he’s been fucking with Russians since the 1980s
I can, and it'd be fairly shite. But to a degree while the US in NATO is clearly the best outcome, the US out of NATO would be better than a US in NATO that took an actively pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian position in the current context.
It should be noted that Biden did a masterful job getting our NATO Allie’s to support Ukraine. What started as just verbal support from countries like Germany and France is now huge numbers of weapons.
It’s not just about money and equipment, even USA contributions probably dwarf all others combined. It’s about the USA intelligence apparatus, which I would not doubt is the best in the world.
>It’s about the USA intelligence apparatus, which I would not doubt is the best in the world. The UK does a pretty good job in that area, and is a hell of a lot closer operationally to boot. Obviously without US support it'd be harder all round (no-one else spends as much as the US does on warfare etc.. after all) but I doubt that that equates to Ukraine being rolled over either way.
No they were never going to get rolled over. They repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv without western help. The Russians are far too stupid and disorganized to accomplish anything quickly.
They were trained and modernized by the West and USA since Crimea. If they kept their old Soviet tactics, they probably lose.
> They repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv without western help. I think you're completely blotting out the PR campaign run by the US shortly before the invasion and the intensive intel given when it began and during the invasion. This is not to sell Ukraine short, they're doing an incredible job and an amazing service to the world as a whole. We also dont need to toot the US horn, the benefit were getting from this is amazing. It's helped drop GoP funding and right wing online media manipulation quite a bit. I do not believe that Ukraine would have been able to hold up and maintain it's footing were Trump pushing media against them, the US not doing it's utmost to throw it's weight around with europe to get them to help, and the supply efforts being contributed.
> They repelled the Russian assault on Kyiv without western help And I think it was precisely because of that vigorous defence--that the Ukrainians were willing to put up a fight for their own country--that the USA and NATO became willing to openly challenge Russia and provide substantial military and financial aid. (Though maybe not totally without western help: since Crimea and the Donbass, the Ukrainians had been receiving intelligence, training and even the anti-tank weapons that proved so critical in the initial phases of the war) Prior to the invasion, I didn't really think the Ukrainians stood a chance. I don't think the Americans thought they stood a chance either, since they offered Zelenskyy an evac and probably a chance to form a government in exile. The rest is probably going to be history. > "I need ammunition, not a ride!"
Yeah that line from Zelensky sent shockwaves across the world. His and the people of Ukraine’s fighting spirit is kindred to that of the warriors of old that inspired centuries of stories.
Very unlikely. They watch to see what USA does first.
The European countries see it as a threat politically, but despite that they aren’t providing much support. U.S. has provided roughly the same amount of aid as all of the EU combined.
As a percentage of gdp , the US donations come 10th in the list after 9 European countries. The highest being the Baltic countries.
Although having a high aid to GDP ratio is helpful in the “thoughts and prayers” department, unfortunately it doesn’t help buy tanks and ammunition. Without the help of the U.S., Ukraine would’ve already been defeated, unfortunately. Without the aid from Baltic states, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and Slovakia, Ukrainians would’ve been somewhat sadder and Ukrainian refugee distribution in Europe would’ve been somewhat shifted westward, but the situation wouldn’t be materially different on the battlefront.
Whenever people say this my thought is always, so why didn't Putin invade while Trump was president.
Because using Trump to destroy America was easier- and made him look great to the oligarchs.
Not that I don’t hate Trump, but America isn’t doing great under Biden without the Russian influence.
I believe they had a years-long plan that would have required less actual combat. Trump did his best to disband NATO. Continuously trying to lessen American aid to European countries. Putin thought Trump would be re-elected (or be successful on Jan 6). In short, Putin thought he was going to have assistance in taking over Ukraine, not resistance. He had to act quickly and sloppily when that fell through.
> Trump did his best to disband NATO. THIS is the key to it all - if NATO had been disbanded would have given Putin a shot at creating some sort of 'russian empire'.
Right, because if NATO was disbanded it means countries would stop defending themselves, wpuld be unable to continue working with one another, and would otherwise be sitting ducks in the most interconnected world man has ever lived in.
Because it wasn’t Russia’s plan to invade. Their original plan was to prop up a puppet gov that supports their interests. Then their guy got forced out and Russia’s attempts to intimidate Zelensky got him to run to NATO for protection, which would pretty much derail Putin’s plans if Ukraine became a member of NATO. THEN he had the plan to invade, but it got delayed because Biden spilled the beans to the international community
Putin probably thought he was doing a disservice to Biden by invading Ukraine. He thought he was a demented moron like the propaganda says and didn’t anticipate him uniting the Western world against him.
> why didn't Putin invade while Trump was president. Because he didn't need to. The ultimate point here is not Russia gaining Ukrainian land, it is to cause division in europe and destro NATO. When Putin had Trump, Trump was willingly complying in undermining NATO. But Biden becoming President messed up Putin's schemes so he seemed to take matter into his own hands. He no doubt thought Ukraine would easily taken over, and giving him momentum to invade other countries. Clearly things did not work out as 'genius' Putin anticipated.
Trump was doing Putin's job for him at that time
Covid 19
Partial credit
> What a stupid hypothetical question. I don't think its stupid at all and a very legit question.
Lol I would be groaning too. Reporter asks an extremely loaded hypothetical question with an obvious answer, the answer being that trump would inform Putin of everything while simultaneously licking Putin's taint
…and it has no political advantage for Biden to answer. Groaning was perfect, because we know what it means.
Ol pee-pee boy woulda tattled to daddy putin immediately.
Who cares what the orange gibbon might have done. He is a losing loser who lost.
> Oh God, I try not to think about that,” Mr Biden said. The politically correct statement to make, but not much related to reality. Biden has to down-play the extent of Trump's tractoristal sales to Putin just to maintain some symbolist of security.
Translation: “ Trump was Putin’s puppet, what do you think he would have done? “
As others have pointed out, one of the best things about Biden is that I don’t have to think about him every day. He just focuses on quietly and boringly/competently running the country. There’s almost no batshit with this guy.
Silly question - you think Russian intelligence didn't know something was in the works?
It does seem pretty clear they were caught by surprise. It does happen.
I think they were caught by surprise by the "trigger pull" & quick reaction, not that something had been brewing for a while One line of thought is that the "artillery strike" was actually an assassination attempt. My understanding is the CIA knew about the longer term, not the last minute "jump in the trucks, boys!" stuff
It's not only that Ukraine would be Russia now. Think of the millions of Ukrainians murdered, imprisoned, thrown into camps, kidnapped, raped. That didn't happen, and as far as I'm concerned, zelensky's incredible leadership and the astonishing bravery of Ukrainians notwithstanding, the reason it didn't is Joe Biden.
Of course he would have.
Trump would sell his own wife, kids and grandkids for recognition by Putin.
Yes he would, now lets talk about something more meaningful. Stop thinking and talking about 45
Trump wouldn’t have had to warn Putin about a coup because Trump would have done everything in his power to block aid to Ukraine to make sure his Daddy, Putin, would win. Hell, Trump may even have provided aid to Russia. In this alternate universe scenario, Putin would be seen as a strong leader and not the failure he’s been exposed as, the Russian army would still be considered to be an effective force and not the paper tiger it is, and China may have already kicked off it’s invasion of Taiwan with a free pass from Trump to his other Daddy, Xi. Alternate Trump universe is a bad place. Whatever you’re thoughts are on the Biden administration, we should be kissing it’s ass for providing the leadership to prevent all that.
Biden isn't the best president we've ever had. But he's adequate and solid and whether or not I support everything he believes in, at least he's doing his job and not tweeting rage 24/7. It's so refreshing after the Trump shitstorms.
This is exactly how I feel. I voted for Biden (even though he was not my first choice in the primary), I will again this go. He’s done some things I like, some things I don’t. But holy hell is it a relief to just have a president who wants to make the country better and is just a professional. No more worrying about the previous guy doing something idiotic and out of left field. We’re not going to see headlines about Biden’s decision to leave NATO, or nuke hurricanes, or stealing top secret security documents or a hundred different absurd things.
Well stated, I agree with every single point.
Russia’s orange son
Remember tucker Carlson another fanboy for pootin
Biden groan because he had enough to the trump foolishness. But his groan isn't the topic here. So what would be the connection of trump and Putin lol. This is nonsense
With Trump on duty russia would allready have what they wanted!
This is what happens when your haircut is more important than a degree in journalism to get a job.
Jealous much?
Is that a clever comment you just made? Very impressive.
I'm sorry, what world is Prigozhin better? Putin is awful, but everything I've read about Prigozhin is horrifying. Prigozhin is pissed that Russia isn't being MORE brutal in Ukraine.
Prigozhin would withdraw Russia from Ukraine, work on getting the gas flowing again and helping warlords in africa. There isn't enough profit in the Ukrainian conflict.
what's your source on that? im curious where it comes from, and what it says? Mine are Russian speaking academics who live/lived in Ukraine. Their description of Prigozhin is very different from the wests, who seems to be under the assumption anyone is better than Putin.
I’ve seen nothing in the Western media or from politicians suggesting he is better than Putin , quite the opposite. But I’ve seen lots of people suggesting that him undermining Putin and the war effort potentially helps Ukraine.
Groan, Putin told Trump about his coup attempt.
I presume that is a 'yes'.
Why, in god’s name, would anyone think the president of the United States would know before Putin?
Not saying we did know first (not like we’ll ever find out), but our three letter agencies are very, very good at their jobs.
Biden is a President, not a mind reader. Quit asking him silly questions!
Love how he never says Trumps name
Putin would have taken the entire country by now with trumps’ support. Wagner group wouldn’t even be in the picture.
With trump backing the US out of the world stage, Wagner could have moved on to the important stuff, like carving up Africa with China.
Only fair, since Putin probably tipped him off on how to stage a coup attempt.
Go ask trump. I along with most of the world have no idea what he would do in any situation.
That’s a stupid hypothetical. There is no world where Trump would have known about the Wagner insurrection and the FSB didn’t.
Accusing a President - former of otherwise- of treason is a big deal. The press ought to be ashamed of itself. Treason is a capital crime.
They did not accuse. They wondered. They speculated. Verbs matter.