"Washington Has Become the Court of Nero"

A French senator's blistering indictment

"Washington has become the court of Nero, an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a jester high on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States." — Claude Malhuret, Senator of the French Republic, March 4, 2025

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We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, but I wanted to send out this bonus newsletter tonight.

My friends, you may have seen this on social media — a searing indictment of Trumpism by a French Senator, who seems to grasp the threat more powerfully than many of his American counterparts.

It is amazing on every level, and very much worth your time.

Happy Thursday night.

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Here is the English translation of the Senator’s speech:

Europe is at a critical turning point in its history.

The American shield is slipping away, Ukraine risks being abandoned, and Russia is being strengthened.

Washington has become the court of Nero: an incediary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a buffoon on ketamine tasked with purging the civil service.

This is a tragedy for the free world. But above all it is tragedy for the United States.

Trump’s message is that being his ally serves no purpose, as he will not defend you, he will impose higher tariffs on you than on his enemies, and he will threaten to seize your territories, while supporting the dictators who invade you.

The so-called king of the deal is demonstrating what the ‘submissive’ art of the deal is.

He believes he will intimidate China by capitulating to Putin, but Xi Jinping, witnessing such a collapse, is undoubtedly accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.

Never in history has a President of the United States surrendered to an enemy.

Never before has one supported an aggressor against an ally.

Never before has one trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could oppose him, sacked the entire military leadership in one go, weakened all counterpowers, and taken control of social media.

This is not a mere illiberal drift. It is the beginning of a seizure of democracy.

Let us remember that it only took just one month, three weeks, and two days to bring down the Weimar republic and its Constitution.

The Shining City Goes Dark

I have faith in the resilience of American Democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in just one month, Trump has done more damage to America than in four years of his previous term.

We were at war with a dictator, we are now fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor.

Eight days ago, at the very moment when Trump was patting Macron on the back at the White House, The United States voted at the UN alongside Russia and North Korea, against the Europeans who were demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.

Two days later, in the oval office, the draft-dodger was giving moral and strategic lessons to the war hero Zelensky, before dismissing him like a stable boy, ordering him to submit or resign.

Last night he took another step into disgrace, by halting the delivery of promised weapons. What should we do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: stand firm.

And above all, do not be mistaken. Ukraine’s defeat would be Europe’s defeat. The Baltic countries, Georgia, and Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin. The Global South is awaiting the outcome of this conflict to decide whether they should continue respecting Europe, or whether they are now free to trample it. What Putin wants is the end of the order established by the United States and its allies: 80 years ago, whose first principle was the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.

This principle is at the very foundation of the UN, where today, the Americans voted in favor of the aggressor, and against the victim, because Trump’s vision aligns with Putin’s: a return to spheres of influence, where big powers dictate the fate of smaller nations. “I take Greenland, Panama, and Canada; you take Ukraine, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe. He takes Taiwan and the South China Sea.”

In Mar-a-Lago, golfing oligarchs party; this is called ‘diplomatic realism’. We are therefore alone. But the claim that resisting Putin is impossible is false. Contrary to Kremlin propaganda, Russia is struggling. In three years, the so-called second-best army in the world has managed to gain only a few crumbs from a population three times smaller. With interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign currency and gold reserves, and a demographic crisis, Russia is on the brink.

The American lifeline to Putin is the greatest strategic mistake ever made during a war.

The shock is severe but it has a virtue. Europeans are emerging from denial. In a single day in Munich, they understood that Ukraine’s survival and Europe’s future are in their hands, and that they have three imperatives:

First, accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, to ensure it holds, and of course, to secure its and Europe’s place at the negotiating table. This will be costly. It will require ending the taboo on using frozen Russian assets. It will require bypassing Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself through a coalition of willing countries, with the United Kingdom, of course, included.

Second, demand that any agreement includes the return of kidnapped children, prisoners, and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia, and Minsk, we know what Putin’s agreements are worth. These guarantees must be backed by sufficient military force to prevent another invasion.

Finally, and most urgently, because it will take the longest, we must rebuild the neglected European defense, which has relied on the American umbrella since 1945, and sabotaged since the fall of the Berlin wall. It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books. Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is an admission that France has been right for decades in advocating for strategic autonomy. Now, it must be built.

Massive investment will be needed, reinforcing the European defense fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, harmonizing weapons and ammunition systems, accelerating Ukraine’s EU membership, since it now has the largest army in Europe, rethinking the role and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, and relaunching missile defense and satellite programmes.

The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is an excellent starting point. And much more will be needed. Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power once more. In short, we must implement the Draghi report, for real.

But Europe’s true rearmament is its moral rearmament. We must convince the public opinion in the face of war fatigue and fear, and especially against Putin’s collaborators in both the far right and the far left. They once again stood in the National Assembly yesterday, Prime Minister, before you, arguing against European unity and European defense. They claim to want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle’s Zelensky with a Ukrainian Petain at Putin’s beck and call. The peace of collaborators who, for three years, have refused to support the Ukrainians in any way. Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance?

The risk is great. But in recent days, the public humiliation of Zelensky, and the series of reckless decisions taken over the past month, have finally stirred Americans into action. Poll numbers are plummeting, Republican representatives are being met with hostile crowds in their districts, even Fox news is becoming critical.

The Trumpists are no longer in their prime. They control the executive branch, congress, the supreme court, and social networks. But in American history, the defenders of freedom have always prevailed. They are beginning to rise again. The fate of Ukraine is decided in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who fight for democracy, and here, on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for our collective defense, and to restore Europe to the great power it once was, and hesitates to become again.

Our parents defeated fascism and communism at the cost of great sacrifice. The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century. Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.

The boys are impressed.

Vive la France!