On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not reaching a peace deal with Russia to end the war, saying that whatever agreement was possible would not be worse than the current situation for Ukraine.
“Those cities are gone. They’re gone, and we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky. There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now,” Trump said at a campaign rally in North Carolina.
“You have a country that has been obliterated, not possible to be rebuilt. It’ll take hundreds of years to rebuild it, there’s not enough money to rebuild it if the whole world got together. If they made a bad deal, it would have been much better,” the former president added.
Trump said Zelensky was making “aspersions” toward him, an apparent reference to comments the Ukrainian leader made in a recent New Yorker interview about Trump’s desire to end the war.
“My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how. With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I’ve seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it’s not that simple,” Zelensky said.
In the same interview, Zelensky called Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, “too radical.” In a June interview with The New York Times, Vance said that he would favor a deal that freezes the battle lines, guarantees Ukrainian independence, and includes some sort of long-term US military assistance for Ukraine.
Zelensky is at odds with other Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who is upset with Zelensky for visiting an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania without inviting any Republicans. Johnson wrote a letter to Zelensky demanding he fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the US.
“I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova,” Johnson said in the letter. “The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.”
Zelensky toured a factory in Scranton with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who was a leading candidate to be Vice President Harris’s running mate before she picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Both Zelensky and Shapiro signed artillery shells at the factory.
Trump has these excellent instincts. If he could prevent his basic narcissism from ruling him … but then he wouldn’t be who he is.
There's the rub.
He’s also inherently transactional. If Zelensky greased his palms, how much would it change his mind?
Look at his approach to Israel and the Adelsons.
Indeed … but his big mouth destroys the careful narrative over and over again. I think that’s the primary reason why they hate him.
Brilliant insight, Caliman.
Yes. He blurts out the truth about how it’s all rigged, bought and paid for. It’s not proper decorum to let the cat out of the bag to peasants, who actually already know the score:
So many great songs/poems by Cohen …
My favorite of Trump's letting the cat out of the bag was when he was being criticized for meeting 1:1 with Putin and this so-called journalist from MSM asked him with a tut-tut look on his face why he'd done it since "he's a killer" and Trump said you don't think we have killers on our side?
MICIMATT just HATES stuff like that 🙂
He was one of them. More drone strikes than Obama administration.
One minute he's making sense the next minute he's saying people should be jailed for criticizing the Supreme Court.
No filter at all … though he tends to walk back his worst instincts in his rambling and nonsensical way many times so you never know what he really thinks.
I don't know man. He seems to double down on some of his most outlandish comments.
He says Israel should "finish the job" in Gaza. Why didn't he use his powers of persuasion to get Russia and Kiev together to get Kiev to stop bombing Donbas, bringing peace, cutting off the inevitable when Russia exercised RTP (responsible to protect) when he was POTUS?
Thank you for reminding people that the RF employed R2P. I feel like sometimes I'm the only one here who "gets" the concept of precedent.
Trump wanted Putin to destroy the bioweapons labs and dismantle the human trafficking, organ sales and adrenochrome manufacturing facilities.
No one heard of the bio-weapon labs in Ukraine until the cookie lady, Victoria Nuland, blurted out her fear that those dastardly Russians would take the labs over.
And even then, no one heard of bio-weapons labs in Ukraine. People just assumed — conveniently for the side they supported — that biological research labs must be bio-weapons labs, and ran with that assumption. As you are still doing.
She let the cat out of the bag alright,
I wasn't defending him so I'm not quite sure why your asking me those questions.
I was asking in general, not specifically to anyone in particular. Sorry if I seemed otherwise.
I was asking in general, not specifically to anyone in particular. Sorry if I seemed otherwise.
us bombing Donbas?
He's playing the media like a five dollar guitar.
And he sounds like a five dollar guitar.
The media dance to his tune.
Wow that was an impressive moment of lucidity and sanity between Trump's usual word salad rants.
Does he mean it? His mind works overtime conceiving plans, words, to influence. Because he is a loudmouth, and media loves those types of people, media will put out there whatever he vomits up in his word salads.
He's a windsock. He knows he's a broken clock so he says every possible combination of things to be "right twice a day" on SOMETHING.
ALL politicians in America are windsocks.
thats what you get with populism
It's a sad day when a narcissistic sociopath sounds like the voice of reason. Of course if he were invested in the MIC rather than real estate and money laundering his tune would be dramatically different.
The "voice of reason" contributed to the Ukraine mess when he supplied Ukraine with Javelin missiles, after he withdrew the U.S. from the INF Treaty, as will as Open Skies.
It can be argued that Mr. Trump contributed to the 7Oct breakout by Hamas. The first move in that direction came when he moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Then he supported the annexation of the West Bank. He also supported the annexation of the Golan Heights.
Mr. Trump is no answer to brining peace in Ukraine or the Middle East (not when he says that Israel needed to "finish the job" of genocide).
Nope, that’s why I just contented myself with “sounds like”.
And that from a Putin supporting narcisstic sociopath. Talk about irony…
Always so many wise words, indeed ideals, here at our wonderful antiwar.com.
But he reached a peace deal. Zelensky was elected after he promised to sign a peace deal with Russia. He attended a peace conference in Paris in 2019 and signed a peace deal with Putin, but the American CIA told him to ignore it lest he have an accident.
Let's check The Donald against facts in evidence :
"Those cities are gone."
False.
"…we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refused to make a deal, Zelensky."
True.
"There was no deal that he could have made that wouldn’t have been better than the situation you have right now,”
True.
“You have a country that has been obliterated"
False.
"…not possible to be rebuilt."
False.
"It’ll take hundreds of years to rebuild it,"
False.
"…there’s not enough money to rebuild it if the whole world got together."
False.
"If they made a bad deal, it would have been much better,”
Uncertain.
Biden could have headed it off in December, 2021. IF he was a diplomat. He ain't any such thing, as we all know.
I agree with that Biden could have prevented in December 2021. When Putin claimed that his troops were just amassing on the border as an excise, Biden could have sent the 10st Mount Division to Ukraine to sharpen their winter mountain skill. Just an excise. Putin would not attack with US troops in Ukraine.
We would be in WW3 if Biden had done that. And there were troops being amassed on both sides of the border.
Zelensky needs to surrender both himself and his army to the russian authorities.
That is nuts. You want Russia to acquire Ukraine? What do think will happen if you get your wish? No more Ukraine.
Zelensky and Shapiro following the Israeli habit of signing shells. How fitting.
Nikki Haley signed shells destined for Gaza and Lebanon. Real classy woman.
I wonder if we can ask her to sign the rape dildos that the IOF was using on the Palestinian prisoners….
Signing shells is a tradition that goes way back. In April 1942, Doolittle signed the bombs that would drop on Japan.
As if some nasty "tradition" makes it all right. Brilliant.
tronald dump is a ridiculous man
You better hope he does not win. Ukraine is history if that happens. PS. How is your Russian?
maybe you should learn russian you talk about it a little too much
and if he wins we aren’t history
besides our european allies, do you know how hard it is to rule 40 million people that don’t want to be ruled?
exactly
Good times Is this a SNL skit, or the movie Idiocracy? Harvard Lampoon was the best…
signed shells from a shapiro? how kosher https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7972958fe6ce5453ba6def2193778db3435bd870e34bfe8bb79cad7b9991e2fa.jpg
Howdy Duty met with Al Capone and walked away with $8 Billion more in cash and military equipment to sell on the black market.
A White Knight told Howdy Duty Fat Chance that will continue.
Howdy Duty returned to his small kingdom of 19 million naive inhabitants and told his subjects that the White Knight will continue to give his kingdom cash and equipment.
Last week American taxpayers were obligated for another $16.7 Billion. Howdy Duty was pledged $8 Billion and Israel was pledged $8.7 Billion.
Hopefully the printing presses will not run out of paper and ink.
"When the Fed increases the money supply faster than the economy is growing, inflation occurs. In this situation, the increase in money circulating in an economy is higher than the increase in goods produced."
Since 2009 a certain Eastern European country has received $300 Billion. Howdy Duty!