President Trump strongly criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after a tense argument in the Oval Office on Friday. Trump accused Zelensky of showing disrespect toward the United States…
I mean, if the position of the country can change to such an insane degree by the results of a single election cycle then a lot of that goodwill that was given prior, should be examined.
That's the sad fact of the matter. Trump and Vance and Elon and the rest of the administration are a fucking catastrophe, yes. But what is even worse than that, what is even more damaging for the long term viability of diplomacy, of international relations and governance, is that even when these clowns are gone, it can happen again.
Every time another country signs a trade deal, an alliance, a pact, an agreement of any sort with the US, even if the current leadership is absolutely incredible, that can change dramatically on a dime within 4 years. That has always been true, of course, but historically the precedent has been that new administrations are largely consistent in upholding international agreements. But a new precedent has been set, that agreements (aka "sheets" as the dumbass calls them) are worthless, that they can be torn up on a whim, that peace may require you to fluff the ego of a megalomaniac and kiss his feet, that you might have to placate idiocy and bravado and STILL have your economy rocked by asinine trade policies, that the threat of invasion and war could be a negotiation tactic for trade deals...
Countries are going to completely detach themselves from the US in all matters, and they absolutely should. We are going be turned into a North Korea-like state. Cut off from world trade and information, no diplomacy, just a looming threat to the whole world. Fuck me, this shit is bleak.
I’ll be honest with you guys… my wife and I (Australian) had a three-week holiday to America planned for June which I just cancelled last week because I don’t want to give you a single fucking dollar.
I don't blame you, I just hope you all remember that this is being done to us by state actors, chiefly the Russians. We've given them the tools to do it with - our freedom of speech and the Internet, but I just hope you understand they are leveraging the stupidest among us to do all of this.
I have zero faith that Trump and Vance will do anything that favors ongoing world peace and/or limiting Russian Aggression, instead I believe Trump and Vance will serve their own interest by selling out Ukraine and baking up a scheme that will gain favor of their Russian buddies, who control an amazing amount of wealth for a country with such a high poverty rate.
How long till we send troops into Ukraine? I don't mean as allies.
Reagan is spinning in his grave. (Don't get me wrong, a grave is where he belongs, but he'd be pretty burned about this)
As an American, my hopes and prayers are that the World will remember that approximately half of us are being held hostage inside of the clown car, and are being forced to go along for the ride.
Looking from a country bordering russia, the amount of goodwill towards the US has little weight. We have to carefully consider how and what we can trust. Short term business should be fine, strategic partnerships are more suspect. We need to also play the long game and try to be friends with the people, even if have a fake grin when talking with the government.
As an American, frankly, there shouldn't have been much goodwill to begin with. But yeah, it feels pretty bad watching these vermin stab Ukraine in the back. And let's be honest, these people and the ones that voted for them, my loved ones included, are fucking vermin.
At first, Zelensky rejected the proposal, but the two countries eventually reached an agreement on a revised version. Zelensky traveled to Washington to finalize and sign the deal.
However, tensions escalated when Zelensky tried to explain Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lack of diplomacy to Vice President Vance. Vance accused Zelensky of “litigating” in front of the media and criticized him for appearing in photos with Democrats during the 2024 campaign. He also said Zelensky’s comments were “disrespectful” to the Trump administration.
This sounds just like a setup to humiliate Zelensky and justify this shit to the MAGA brains. Trump and Vance weren't planning on signing the deal. Pure and simple propaganda. But MAGAs don't have enough neurons to see it.
Appearing in media with members of the current administration (just like now)? How dare he!
Also, a side thought I had recently: I wonder how these conservatives would feel if Mexico invaded and captured territory in Arizona? I mean, it wasn't that long ago that it actually was a part of Mexico, and a lot of the population still identifies with that country.
Just cede the land to avoid conflict, right?
Edit: Plus, everyone knows Arizona has a Nazi problem, so the invasion would be totally justified, right? Right? lol
I think a big part of this being cancelled at this late stage is Europe stepping up and offering peace keepers. I do not think Trump counted on that and wanted the deal with basically no peacekeepers. All along, he was was no to supplying security.
This would have given putin time to rebuild and carte blanche to renew the attack when he was able. Putin can't do that if Europe is in Ukraine as that would be a massive escalation.
Yeah, I hate to see the US being such a fucking shit ally, but the one silver lining is that Europe does seem to be warming up to the idea of putting boots on the ground and beefing up support for Ukraine.
Russia isn't going to stop trying to expand, especially after the tactical knowledge they've gained. All they want is a break to resupply and rebuild their army. Personally, I think we should have started sending in special covert 'peacekeeping' troops several years ago, and given Ukraine top tier kit when Wagner started marching to Moscow. We could have been in a position to devastate Russians military capability. Instead fucking Republican traitors held everything up. Screw the Arab spring, we need an American Spring. Get your scopes sighted in and your bugout bags ready
It's a win win for them. They get a political win, a promise of money, or both. There's still a chance the deal gets signed in order to keep getting American weapons. From Zelensky's point of view they can always slow roll the payments.
yea they almost always needed soundbites for fox, to "reassure maga" brains. as far as news is going they needed to distract from things like his epstein news all the time, everytime that thing comes up, MSM try to pitch an outlandish news to distract the masses.
I wanted to point out something about what Trump said during that meeting...
“You’re in a bad position right now. You don’t have the cards.”
My understanding is that Ukraine did have the cards, they were called nukes, but they gave them up for peace and guarantees of protection from the United States, and others, against invasion.
The Donetsk conflict was started by militias trained, supplied, and paid by Russia. With Russian troops entering Donestk for technical support, logistical support, and really just any help they needed including combat units to beat back the Ukrainian Army at several points.
Donetsk was the actual "Special Military Operation".
Trump, like every arogant POS has overestimated his strength. Europe can and will enter the conflict as Russia has proven itself to be an existential threat. NATO is dead, but EU has been planning for this. I wouldn't be surprised if UKR already has or will obtain a nuke and put on a show of force . Nuking Russian troops on its own territory would be fine- and provide ground denial to the Russians.
Wouldn't have mattered even if true. Physical access trumps everything. Worst case scenario, if they really wanted to, they could reverse engineer the primer & guidance system, then replace the originals with their own.
Keep in mind that Ukraine was a massive hub for military industry in the USSR.
But also, since they were neighbors, you wouldn't need to launch missiles, you could just take the payload out of a missile, stick it in a briefcase, and walk it over.
That was one of the most disgusting and rage-inducing videos I've ever seen. I would not have been able to restrain myself from punching Trump in the fucking nose if he had talked to me like that. I'm not a tough guy or violent in any way, and the Secret Service would have killed me, but the way he yells such insulting things at a world leader who is trying to save millions of lives... holy crap. And then Vance jumps in and claims he never said Thank You. I would've kicked him in the nuts and said, "thank you, now I feel better."
This was a setup from the get go. They had no intention of signing any deal. This was all to get him in front of cameras with them so they could piss on his face and act like tough guys.
I particularly love the part where he says Obama sent them sheets and Trump sent them Javelins* then pauses to look at the camera and tell the media that that's their headline. He may be losing his marbles, but that attention removed instinct goes straight to the core
* *Not sure if that's the military aid he tried to block in order to coerce them into investigating the son of a political rival, or if he's just taking credit for the aid sent under Biden that he actively opposed. Either way, it's fucking rich for him to take credit for military aid when he is personally responsible for delaying and reducing the aid Ukraine got.
JD Vance is talking over a tired-looking trump who can't follow the conversation (See, him trying to correct Zelenskyy on the date of Crimea's annexation, claiming it was 2015, then responding to being corrected on the date that, "I wasn't there". Like he was there in 2015, LOL).
This was a preplanned ambush that is the most cringe fucking thing I've seen in the last 5 years, from MTG's fucking boyfriend (I wish I made this up, I really do), attacking Zelenskyy for not wearing a suite, to which he responds by saying "I'll wear a costume after the war is over. Like yours, but maybe better"
JD Vance is really really bad at acting. He theatrically exclaims how the Oval office is being dIsReSPecTed!!!111!!! but with like a 5 second delay and with limited enthusiasm. All it does it tells you that this was the plan all along.
Marco Rubio had a Dr Birx/drink bleach kind of moment there.
Overall the only news here is trump is really really declining cognitively. I wonder how long it will take NYT to notice that....
All they achieved with this ambush is to show the difference in quality between Zelenskyy and trump/vance. The contrast is stark. Those two guys would have shat themselves in a reverse situation.
I'm sure the NYT has noticed, but their attorneys probably advise against making medical claims about sitting presidents. Especially since the current one is particularly litigious.
Some of us voted all blue and still respect the Constitution and its oath (except the 13th), and yes we do feel pretty damn embarrassed and not looking forward to the next few years trying to fend off the fascists
Trump was so backed into a corner he reflexively rambled about Hunter Biden's laptop and Hillary Clinton. What a joke. Then doubling down on Vance's inane rambling about not showing gratitude, channelling peak abusive parent energy.
All because Zelensky made very reasonable points about requiring guarantees.
Too bad there is no republican in congress sophisticated enough to realize they tied their cart to a psychotic, inane, horse that is going to drive them over a cliff.
Yep, him trying to do hardcore protection politics at that point, during a conversation that included talking about World War 3, really disgusted me as well.
This isn’t unbelievable, If I were Ukraine I would have been insulted by not been invited to the peace talks and would reject any deal the US made at all. This was bound to fall apart.
Also, Trump is the world’s biggest man-child, he was going to embarrass our country no matter what.
I just watched the last half of the full meeting. Zelensky asked what guarantees there are the Russians won't just invade again. The subtext of which is an offer to house US troops in Ukraine. But all the fucking clown car heard was a challenge to their machismo.
So they shouted him down and just loudly asserted he would either sign their deal or fight it out. Along the way they manage to insult him by treating him like a child and pretending that previous broken agreements, (invasion of Crimea, Invasion of Donetsk, and Invasion of Ukraine) were because Putin didn't respect the American President enough. But Putin is also the victim in all of this according to Trump.
I've seen better diplomacy from a high school football team.
For more subtext, if there were any real guarantees then this would not have happened in the meeting with the press. Zelensky would have told reporters there were guarantees. This entire blow up means that Trump already told him there would be no guarantees other than the honor system. Which, even if Trump is right, (Putin respects Trump and won't invade while he's president), Zelensky knows that means Putin will invade again in 2028 after Trump's term is over. And that's without getting into all of the implications about Putin holding this over Trump's head for concessions so Trump can appear to be the peacemaker.
I agree with Trump on one thing. We're fucking around with World War 3, but Trump isn't a peacemaker, he's Chamberlain. Right down to berating the leaders who are asking for help to stop the aggressive country.
I’ve seen better diplomacy from a high school football team.
JD Vance talking about diplomacy and accusing fucking Democrats of "beating their chest" was such bullshit I have no idea where to begin with that...which is probably the point.
How are they going to project the soft power of diplomacy when they're in the business of firing half of the people that work in that part of the government? This administration, and this country is a sick, unfunny fucking joke just like the heads of it.
Which, even if Trump is right, (Putin respects Trump and won’t invade while he’s president), Zelensky knows that means Putin will invade again in 2028 after Trump’s term is over.
I realize that the first half of that is speaking about what Trump thinks (as opposed to you claiming it yourself) so this isn't me trying to contradict you, but I think it's important that we all keep in mind the actual reality of the situation:
Putin doesn't respect Trump in the slightest; Trump is his useful idiot.
To the extent that it's true that Putin wouldn't invade while Trump is president, it's only because (a) neutering the US by having his patsy as President achieves pretty much all the same geopolitical goals as creating a buffer state out of Ukraine does anyway, and (b) making Trump look good as a "peacemaker" is self-serving because it helps keep his patsy in place longer.
Trump's not leaving in 2028, unless he's dead.
I agree with Trump on one thing. We’re fucking around with World War 3, but Trump isn’t a peacemaker, he’s Chamberlain. Right down to berating the leaders who are asking for help to stop the aggressive country.
Trump's not Chamberlain either. He's Stalin, making a secret agreement with Hitler (Putin) to carve up Poland (Ukraine) like a thanksgiving turkey. (The analogy is a little awkward because Russia is playing the role of Germany in it instead of itself, but I was going by who attacked the country being carved up first.)
I find it really interesting that almost all of the recent comments on the YouTube video are 95% the same and praising "how great all this transparency" is, completely drowning out all other comments. They're also worded very very similarly.
AI has been rapidly employed to create social media profiles. And before AI, there are entire teams dedicated to managing their own "teams" of social media profiles.
You can rest assured, like 70% of "users" on social media sites are just puppet accounts. You, as a private citizen, can rent some of these pools for things like PR campaigns.
There is a similar phenomenon on Tiktok. The accounts often have similar name structures, have no picture or some USA flag type pic, but what gets me is that they all have around the same amount of followers or people following them.
Then people will make entire videos to engage with the bots... Drives my blood pressure up when I see it.
I read a while ago about someone doing forensic analysis using the heuristic of analyzing follower count numbers. I forget the exact mechanism, but certain patterns indicate that the follower count was statistically anomalous and therefore likely couldn't be trusted.
reddit has those types of bots too, especially on the conservative sub, half of it is by russia. and reddit touting how its getting rid of so many spammers,yet they did very little to stop the political ones, instead went after all the OF ones, and the general users too.
Zekenskyy did the best he could; he came in humility and he really didn't have any cards at that table. He had no cards because he didn't come to play, he came to capitulate to the whims of a tyrant to try and save the lives of his countrymen by signing a one-sided deal.
That video will go down in history as one of the greatest moments of infamy in this age - if there were any justice Trump and the puppet masters behind him should be tried for the spark that lit the third world war.
I am going to be the least surprised person in the world when there is a "terrorist attack" against America that gets linked to pissed off Ukrainians.
America is no longer a soveriegn state, its a meat puppet thats beholden to Corpo-Fascists, Israel, and the Russian Mafia.
Ukraine might as well terminate relations with the US, and join hands with Europe and get ready for larger war, because thats the only place this is going.
Ukrainian/American diplomacy on ending the war is pointless, America is on the side of Russia, and Russia has no intention of peace, they want Ukraine to cease to exist. There is nothing to talk about anymore.
Yeah, it really stood out to me what a little brown nosing baby Vance is. "Yeah, you think you can just come in here and talk to my daddy that way?!" He's got that 'guy trying to move out of the friendzone for the third straight year' energy for Trump.
President Zelensky visited the USA to sign the rare earth mineral mining deal. The US mining executives were salivating over a deal to extract minerals from Ukraine like they do from Africa. Poof, Just Dumb and Orange Nero followed their Kremlin script, added a US temper tantrum and blew the fuck out of the deal. Ukraine will sell mining rights to the EU members, with exception to shitbags from Hungary, Slovakia and perhaps Italy. The executives who supported the deal must be pissed off.
I'm not convinced Trump ever really wanted those minerals. He floated the idea knowing Zelensky would never say 'yes' to the deal as originally presented. But then, when Zelensky seemed prepared to make compromises, Trump had to find another excuse to get the US out of being involved and went with the pathetic, shameful, cowardly performance we just witnessed.
I dislike authoritarian egomaniacs like Trump, Musk, Melei, Johnson, Orban, Putin and all of their supporters who are very aware of their wrongdoings.
I don't dislike the people suffering from those evil doers. I would gladly welcome the UK back to the EUl, celebrate freedom the the people of the USA and drunk Wodka with Russians as long as were all nice to one another.
I fully agree with you, sadly some world leaders benefit way more from dividing and isolating.
The only way forward as the human race in the long term will either be as 1 people (the UN is a good step towards this but clearly not enough) or as a post apocalyptic shattered, severely diminished population. Sadly it's looking more and more like it'll be the second one...
Even /r/conservative (I couldn’t resist looking) is not cool with this. I’m not saying that Trump is suddenly done for, but this is clearly a major fracture and he needs to do something about it before people start feeling emboldened and challenge him.
Let me be clear: I hope he doesn’t do shit and doubles down.
The exact same thing happened on January 6th. They initially expressed disapproval and dismay, but once the "it was just a riot, bro" narrative caught on all dissent vanished. They'd received their marching orders so they no longer had to face the terrifying prospect of actually having to think for themselves.
/r/conservative will always be a nest of Trump support because its moderators are its absolute kings. But the tighter they squeeze their fingers, the fewer genuine participants will stick around. Eventually that'll start to actually cause problems.
The more conservative people that I know who aren't just hard-boiled antichrist enjoyers support both Ukraine and American power projection. In all likelihood, they're not very happy about this.
EU citizen and i'd like to say your apologies are empty and hollow to us. Do something. This isn't a joke, this isn't hyperbole or a leftist talking point, you're under constitutional crisis. Do something.
Our current situation really is the culmination of almost 70 years of rightwing efforts. It’s a long listen but worth checking out How Conservatism Won by Robert Evans. He lays out in a clear concise way “how a consortium of rich failsons got together to fund a network of right wing think tanks and shift American culture in a fun new direction. (note: it was not actually fun at all).” They’ve been very successful and those think tanks are now pipelines used to funnel ideological purists into powerful positions like our current Supreme Court.
It's worth remembering that one of the primary ghouls/traitors responsible for the attempted overthrow of our government on J6 was Roger Stone, the same traitorous ratfucker who began his career working for Nixon and has a fucking Nixon tattoo on his back. It's really impossible to overstate just how fuckin' bad these people are and they're winning.
I tell people as often as I can, especially my trans and bipoc friends; now is the time. Get a couple guns (a long one and a short one) and learn how to use them. Learn some basic first aid, you really just need to know how to stabilize someone. Start networking with like-minded people in your communities. The police will not protect us, they’ve proven they’ll happily club senior citizens to the ground and shoot any protesters in the face with rubber bullets while escorting a rightwing murderer to safety.
The coup was successful, they're in power and if they don't want to give it up they won't.
Get to know people in your community. Take an interest in growing food, learn how to fix things. Establish secondary lines of communication and start preparing.
They 100% planned to ambush Zelensky to make Trump look "tough". This was a pr stunt by Trump. What's amazing is that a solid chunk of people will look at him favorably during this exchange.
Damn. That video is hard to watch. It's clear Zelensky is at a grave disadvantage because American English is not his first language.
It would be way easier for him to reason with these people and get his message out if he could just talk like a normal American.
He's not able to explain what's actually a very simple and clear concept: the US gave Ukraine security guarantees that it did not fulfill. Then he gets steamrolled by people who can speak English better than him and all he can do is sit back and watch.
This is not true. Zelenskyy made himself very clear: It is absolutely justified to question the value of diplomacy (2014 to 2022, covering 3 presidents) if it leads to more violence and annexation.
Trump's first language is english yet he's the one who could not articulate a single thing to guarantee lasting peace adhered to by putin. Instead he talked about the investigation of his russian ties as something that traumatized both him and putin. The guy is so demented at this point, he's really letting the truth slip out.
Wow that went worse than I thought it would. TBH I was thinking he might actually pull off a win here.
I'm left with my original thought that Trump is actively trying to destroy America. Everything he and Elon are doing seems to be doing nothing but undermine standing and stability. Truly mind bending. I wonder when/if MAGA will snap from the trance.
That was my take away too, especially side by side with illegally dismantling USAID (and with it, US soft power) and a ton of functional agencies (e.g. NOAA, FDIC) that don't cost much and protect us both physically and financially. If I wrote a playbook of how to quickly cripple a county, it would pretty much be this.
Trump and Vance responded like two people way out of their element, arrogant but incompetent and frustrated that things aren't working the way they think it should be but unable to see why. Not only are they on the wrong side of history here, they're not capable enough leaders to handle it in any way and they've proven it today.
Worry for America because its enemies see this incompetence and weakenss too.
Worry for America because its enemies see this incompetence and weakenss too.
America's enemies have already exploited its weakness and Trump being president is the result. America is, right now, already Russia's ally and vassal state. Trump is, right now, doing a "destroy all existing alliances and soft power and turn the US into a pariah rogue state" any% speedrun.
Unless you're talking about America's new enemies -- Europe, Canada, Mexico, etc. -- what more do America's previous enemies need to do?
If you are European, I would start taking heed of your government's warnings of the past year, and understand that your country will be openly at war with Russia very soon.
if you are American, I would start getting used to the idea that Civil War is probably inevitable.
If you are Canadian, Start taking lessons from the history of Vietnam, Iraq, Finland, and Ukraine. Its going to be especially bad for us. Surrounded by enemies and our Allies an ocean away and dealing with their own war with Russia
If you are Russian, get ready to die as the bunker grandfather uses you like cattle.
If you are Chinese, get ready to win by doing nothing.
if you are American, I would start getting used to the idea that Civil War is probably inevitable.
If you are Canadian, Start taking lessons from the history of Vietnam, Iraq, Finland, and Ukraine. Its going to be especially bad for us. Surrounded by enemies and our Allies an ocean away and dealing with their own war with Russia
The non-MAGA faction of the civil war might ally itself with Canada.
(Also, you should add an "if you are Mexican" part.)
That's how you lose with characters like Trump. They're looking to trigger you into a shit show, and then beat you with experience. You have to stay calm and let them make an ass of themselves. They will eventually get too rash and make a royal fuck up.
I visited an American working friend in Russia around the turn of the century. If asked, like by our cab driver, he’d say he was Canadian. They would then nastily trash Americans. The Cold War made both populations suspicious of if not just hate the other but the Russians have had the hate reinforced stronger and harder by their government.
Other countries, there’s not as much anti-American bias. Well, there wasn’t. Now, I expect it’ll spread for different reasons.
This has to be a put on. All of the deal making gets done beforehand. Two leaders sitting down and making a deal on video is symbolic, all of the groundwork is long done before it gets to this point. Trump and company are putting on a show for the camera