Putin Endorses Trump's Defense Strategy
In which Liz Cheney calls out the 'Putin Wing' of the Republican Party
We have become so unaffected by the connection between former President Donald J. Trump and Russian President-for-Life Vladimir Putin that a news item from The Associated Press early Tuesday slipped past most morning news roundups. It took a tweet from Liz Cheney, the former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming and star of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol to call it to our attention.
At the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific Coast city of Vladivostok, Putin said this, according to the AP:
“As for the prosecution of Trump, for us what is happening in today’s condition in my opinion, is good because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others democracy.”
Painting Trump’s four indictments as a good thing for the exposure of decay in the American political system jibes with the way Trump portrays himself as a political martyr to the MAGA faithful. Campaigning for the 2024 presidential election while out on bail has only strengthened Trump’s lead in the GOP primaries.
Putin continued: “Everything that is happening with Trump is the persecution of a political rival for political reasons. That’s what it is. And this is being done in front of the public of the United States and the whole world.”
“Putin has now officially endorsed the Putin-wing of the Republican Party,” Cheney tweeted hours later.
But his status as “Putin’s puppet” has escalated from being a matter of Trump denying any connection with Russia to blatantly supporting its invasion of Ukraine. Trump called Putin “savvy” and a “genius” when Russia invaded Ukraine. At his CNN town hall earlier this year, Trump refused to indicate any support for Ukraine’s resistance. Saying he wants both side to “stop dying” is not unlike his dog-whistle to the white supremacist Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
If his indictments and Putin’s backing serves to help propel Trump back into the White House, he says he will be able to end the war in one day. No ambiguity there.
Trump can probably count on the backing of Elon Musk, who eagerly welcomed the ex-president back to Twitter before he renamed it “X.”
Tweeting … er, exxing on X last week, Musk said he turned down a request by Ukraine to activate SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications in the area around Sevastapol in Russian-occupied Crimea, thwarting an effort to sink Russian ships with drones, according to The Wall Street Journal. Myhkhailo Podolyak, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on X last Thursday that by turning down the request to activate the satellite communications for Ukraine the Russian fleet fired cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities, leading to civilian casualties.
“This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,” Podolyak wrote of Musk, who, at least, is adhering to his free speech absolutism.
[It must be noted that the wording “turned down a request” is important, because author Walter Isaacson admitted last Saturday he had made an error in his newly released biography Elon Musk when he wrote that Musk turned the satellite off in the area. Rather, Musk refused Ukraine’s request to turn on the satellites in order to allow the drone strike on Russian ships.]
The World’s Richest Man Until He Bought Twitter said he wanted his SpaceX from becoming “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict resolution.” Did he expect this would get both sides to stop dying?
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