Donald J. Trump is not known for returning the sort of loyalty he expects of his sycophants, but the former president appeared unwavering in his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview from Mar-a-Lago on something called The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show on iHeart Radio, calling the dictator’s invasion of two “breakoff” regions of Ukraine “very savvy.”
When first hearing about Trump’s comments, we searched foxnews.com as the likely source of the interview. Instead, Fox was busy painting President Biden as a weak leader on the conflict. Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, rewrote the administration’s history on Sean Hannity’s show, which played tape of Trump warning Germany not to rely on Nord Stream 2 and advocating for more gas and oil drilling to reduce reliance on Russian exports. No mention by Pompeo or Hannity of how Trump wanted the U.S. to leave NATO.
[On Tuesday Biden announced the first tranche of economic sanctions on Russia, including cutting off loans to the country’s VEB bank and its military bank, and freezing western assets held by Russian elites and family members.]
But Wait, Here’s the Transcript
“So Putin is now saying, ‘It’s independent,’ a large section of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right. No, but think of it. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy. I know him very well. Very, very well.” – The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show per CNN.
There’s the clearest look so far at what type of authoritarian leader Trump would make if he were to return to office.
Cue the Alanis Morissette
As reported in The Washington Post about former President Donald Trump, “His long-promised social network, Truth Social, has been almost entirely inaccessible in the first days of its grand debut because of technical glitches, a 13-hour outage and a 300,000-person waitlist.” So he goes on a radio talk show and says of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, “This is genius.”
You may recall that Trump described himself as a “stable genius.” Which makes one wonder about whether he is truly interested in making America “great” again or simply making things swell for what he perceives as his like-minded cohorts. (Although does anyone think that an out-of-office Donald Trump is of much interest to Putin, beyond Trump’s continuing sob-story of the Big Lie, which helps serve to divide Americans, which is the sort of thing that would make Putin happy?)
Some may recall the former official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which operated from 1918 to 1991. Pravda. Translated, that is “Truth.” Wonder where Trump got the name for his app?
--Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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Monday, February 28 News & Notes becomes Meanwhile … Meanwhile, read News & Notes at https://thehustings.news.