Trump's Confession of Cluelessness
Our Dupe-in-Chief.
“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we all together win the presidency, we will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled. The war is going to be settled. I’ll get them both. I know Zelensky, I know Putin. It’ll be done within 24 hours, you watch.” — Donald Trump, campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, July 29, 2023
In case you’re wondering it’s not just you: Politico’s Playbook notes “weekends like this are… unimaginably far from traditional presidential behavior.”
After a bizarre, rambling — and deeply disrespectful — rant-fest at West Point… After his latest blink on tariffs… After a 174-word ALL-CAPS Memorial Day post that lashed out at “THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” “MENTALLY INSANE” migrants, “WARPED RADICAL” Democrats and “USA HATING” judges…. Donald Trump made an astonishing confession…
Happy Tuesday.
Trump admits…
Remarkably, Trump’s magnetic personality and aggressive suckage of Vladimir Putin did not end the war in 24 hours.
Russia’s brutal invasion rages on, Trump’s “diplomacy” is in shambles, and in an astonishing confession of cluelessness, Donald Trump revealed this weekend that he doesn’t understand Vladimir Putin at all; even as Putin is making it clear that he absolutely gets — and owns —Donald Trump.
The result is the dramatic failure of Trump's signature foreign policy initiative that led to this weekend’s burst of frustration from a man who never, ever admits that he's wrong. And while Trump denies any responsibility for his bungling — everything bad is always somebody else’s fault — his weekend cri de cœur to Vlad was also a remarkable admission of his impotence.
For years, Trump has sycophantically groveled to Putin, rationalized his crimes, and parroted his talking points. To win the favor of his buddy in the Kremlin, Trump has upended decades of American foreign policy, switching sides in the United Nations to vote with Putin, insulting our NATO allies, while lavishing the Russian thug with praise for his strength, his brilliance, and his ruthlessness.
Trump was so confident in his personal relationship (which in his narcissism he imagined was a friendship) that he promised — 53 times — that he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. He assumed that Putin would do him a solid.1
Putin had other ideas.
Just days after the two men spoke for two hours about a possible ceasefire — a call Trump described as “excellent” — 2 Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on Ukraine.
A clearly wounded and befuddled Trump posted: “I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump posted on Truth Social, “ But something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY.”
**
This is, of course, a stew of naivete and delusion, because Putin has always been like this. A brutal autocrat. A murderer, who has been waging a genocidal war against his democratic neighbor. “Trump may be the only person in the world still surprised by how Mr. Putin is behaving,” notes the Wall Street Journal editorial board. “The Russian is the same man he’s been for two decades, bent on reconstituting as much of the old Soviet empire as he can get away with.”
None of this is a secret or a mystery.
But Trump — who has invested so much in his relationship with Putin — seems shocked to discover all of this now. “He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I'm not just talking about soldiers,” he complained, as if this was not precisely what Putin has been doing for years now.
Indeed, Trump has long tolerated and defended Putin’s killing3, but what upsets him is the humiliation. As Putin escalates his brutal attack on Ukraine, he is not simply defying Trump; he is repaying years of Trump’s sycophantic groveling and appeasement with an unmistakable deadly middle finger.
And his response to Trump’s complaints doubled down on the insult. In a statement, the Kremlin smirked at Trump’s discomfiture, suggesting that the faux-manly Trump was suffering from “emotional overload.”
The Fuq You was implied.
As Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE), noted over the weekend, “Putin is making a mockery of Trump, and Trump keeps attacking Zelensky.”
Indeed, this may be the great irony of Trump 2.0. While moguls, oligarchs, and institutions quail in fear of Trump’s wrath and rush to bend the knee, it seems increasingly obvious that the only one who really truly understands Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin.
Trump may be a bully, but Putin is the Uber-bully, and he knows that deep down, Trump is a frightened, needy child, and a coward. Easily flattered. And even more easily played.
##
{Note: I wrote a version of this for MSNBC’s Project 47 Newsletter.]
Who saw this coming? Other than everyone?
Via today’s Wapo: “Within Pete Hegseth’s divided inner circle, a ‘cold war’ endures.”
The conflict within Hegseth’s inner circle persists even after he purged several political appointees in April and attempts to portray a sense of unity among his remaining brain trust. His claims, however, are belied by continued behind-the-scenes dysfunction, brought on by unresolved personality conflicts, inexperience, vacancies in key leadership roles and a steady-state paranoia over what political crisis could emerge next, current and former officials said. They described the situation on the condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity and fear of retaliation.
“There’s a cold war that exists in between flash points,” said one person, recounting numerous instances when tempers have flared among key figures on the secretary’s team. “It’s unsettling at times.”
Today in cringeworthy
Like explorers studying gorillas in the mist, Democrats are launching a study of that strange alien beast: young men. Via the NYT: “Democrats Still Searching for a Path Forward Months After 2024 Election.”
For now, Democratic donors and strategists have been gathering at luxury hotels to discuss how to win back working-class voters, commissioning new projects that can read like anthropological studies of people from faraway places.
The prospectus for one new $20 million effort, obtained by The Times, aims to reverse the erosion of Democratic support among young men, especially online. It is code-named SAM — short for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan” — and promises investment to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.” It recommends buying advertisements in video games, among other things.
“Above all, we must shift from a moralizing tone,” it urges.
**
Remarks Rotimi Adeoye:
Democratic donors treating men like an endangered species on a remote island they need to study probably won’t rebuild trust. This kind of top-down, anthropological approach misses the point: people don’t want to be decoded, they want to be understood and met where they are.
Here’s Tyler Austin Harper:
This entire song and dance—the quest for the liberal Joe Rogan, the working-class orientalism—is because nobody wants to do the obvious thing. Just put out some folks on the podcast circuit who are willing to say socially moderate, economically populist things and call it a day.
**
Bonus from Harper in the Atlantic:
The politics of the average American are not well represented by either party right now. On economic issues, large majorities of the electorate support progressive positions: They say that making sure everyone has health-care coverage is the government’s responsibility (62 percent), support raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour (62 percent), strongly or somewhat support free public college (63 percent), and are in favor of federal investment in paid family and medical leave (73 percent). They also support more government regulation of a variety of industries including banking (53 percent), social media (60 percent), pharmaceuticals (68 percent), and artificial intelligence (72 percent).
Yet large majorities of this same American public also take conservative positions on social issues: They think the Supreme Court was right to overturn affirmative action (68 percent), agree that trans athletes should compete only on teams that match their gender assigned at birth (69 percent), believe that third-trimester abortions should be illegal in most circumstances (70 percent), and are at least somewhat concerned about the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country (79 percent).
The importance of Scott Pelley
At a time when his bosses may be about to surrender to Trumpist extortion, CBS’s Scott Pelley delivered a full-throated cry of defiance at Wake Forest’s Commencement.
Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.
First, make the truth seekers live in fear. Sue the journalists and their companies for nothing!
Then, send masked agents to abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights. And send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing!
Then move to destroy the law firms that stand up for the rights of others.
With that done, power can rewrite history with grotesque false narratives! They can make criminals heroes and heroes criminals.
Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality!
Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word.
This is an old playbook, my friends. There’s nothing new in this. George Orwell, who we met on the street in London, 1949, he warned us about what he called “Newspeak.”.
He understood that ignorance works for power. But then it is ignorance, isn’t it? That you have repudiated every single day here at Wake Forest University. Who are you? I think we know.
You can find the whole thing here.
Tuesday dogs
Eli’s first swim, five years ago.
Flashback from 2022: “Trump’s Treason”
Amid widespread criticism of his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, former President Donald Trump publicly called on Putin on Tuesday to release any dirt he might have on Hunter Biden, the president’s son.
This was not taken out of context, nor was it a gotcha take. His own spokeswoman enthusiastically tweeted out his plea to Putin:
It is as if he is recapitulating all of his most egregious scandals — from “Russia, if you’re listening” to “I would like you to do us a favor” — multiplied by a factor of genocide.
And daring us to do something about it.
Trump, writes Aaron Blake, continues to play his greatest hits. “And the hits apparently include seeing just how long his party and supporters will tolerate his treating a man they hate as a legitimate political ally. Because, as always, the point is winning.”
In the interview, Trump focused on allegations that Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from the wife of Moscow’s late mayor, Yury Luzhkov.
Trump complains that Ukraine won’t dish the dirt on Biden — “Now, you won’t get the answer from Ukraine,” he says — but thinks that Putin might.
“She gave him $3.5 million, so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that. I think he should release it,” Trump said. “I think we should know that answer.”
Even as Trump spoke, Putin was waging a war of unremitting terror that has killed thousands of Ukrainians. The West has rallied to oppose him, and nearly every American political figure — from both parties — has denounced the Russian thug.
And it is at this moment, amidst a brutal war of aggression, that Trump once again reached out for Putin’s help in attacking the sitting American president and, by extension, this country.
President Donald Trump said Monday that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” begin ceasefire negotiations after what he described as an “excellent” call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that lasted more than two hours…
The Republican president is banking on the idea that his force of personality and personal history with Putin will be enough to break any impasse over a pause in the fighting.
Flashback to 2017: Asked about Putin, Trump says U.S. isn’t ‘so innocent’ | PBS News
O’Reilly then said about Putin: “But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.”
Trump responded: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
I couldn’t love Scott Pelley’s remarks more. Are you paying attention Jake and mainstream media?
Trump didn’t fare so well with his real daddy either.