Dem
47
GOP
53
In the past 24 hours, there have been a couple of policy announcements on the Russo-Ukrainian front. First, and more importantly, Donald Trump ordered that all military aid to Ukraine be paused. A White House spokesperson explained:
The President has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.
Trump, of course, is not legally entitled to impound the funds, as Congress has already appropriated them and directed they be sent to Ukraine. But the President knows full well that even if lawsuits are filed, and even if they work their way through the court system, and even if the courts rule against the administration, it will take so long that by the time it's all said and done, Ukraine could well be the 47th oblast of Russia. So, the administration can effectively sit on the money for pretty much as long as it wants to, without much in the way of recrimination.
At the same time that the White House was announcing this new policy, an official was explaining to Fox correspondent Peter Doocy what Trump wants from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Doocy reported:
I have been told by a senior official here that nothing's going to happen with this minerals deal until Zelenskyy goes in front of cameras and makes an explicit public apology for the way that he behaved himself, behaved in the Oval Office with that meeting.
Such a demand has no real precedent in the annals of American diplomatic history. Every other administration took the view that the needs of the nation are big, and the personal needs of the president and his ego pale in comparison. Even when a foreign leader embarrasses an American leader, the price of "satisfaction" just isn't worth it. Richard Nixon, just to take one obvious example, was not thrilled when Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe and pounded it on that podium. But he did not run home to Dwight D. Eisenhower and say, "Ike, you MUST demand an apology from Khrushchev."
This said, if an apology will satisfy Trump, we are sure Zelenskyy could find a way to make that happen. We don't think it's a particularly bold statement to say that Zelenskyy has proven to be a bigger man than Trump, and certainly a man who is vastly more willing to put the needs of his country first. Yes, as we have written, Zelenskyy needs to save face before his people and before the nations of the world, and cannot afford to project weakness. But the Ukrainian knows a thing or two about diplomacy, and more than a thing or two about acting, and could undoubtedly deliver an apology that would officially fulfill Trump's demands, but that everyone would know was delivered with Zelenskyy's fingers crossed behind his back.
However, we tend to doubt that an apology will really be sufficient. One thinks of Lucy holding the ball for Charlie Brown, only to yank it away at the last minute. Trump is clearly engaging in some personal score-settling here, and may well be thinking it would be fun to get Zelenskyy to yield, on bended knee, only to say "Sorry! Too late! Begone!" So, Zelenskyy may take a pass on trying to make nice to Trump, at least for now, especially since the Ukrainian knows that: (1) Trump is getting a lot of pressure, behind the scenes, from Republicans who want him to grow up and get the Ukraine minerals deal back on track, and (2) the more obnoxious Trump acts, the more unified the support of the nations of Europe becomes.
Incidentally, we have pointed out a number of times that Trump and J.D. Vance appear to be running plays from the Soviet playbook, which they might have learned from... some friendly person who might have experience in such matters. But, in the end, what do we know about Russian trickery? It's not like we're former CIA operatives, or anything like that. At least, that's our official story. On the other hand, someone who definitely would know something about that is former Polish leader Lech Wałęsa, who is still going strong at 81 years of age. He, along with 38 other former political prisoners of the Soviet regime, wrote a letter to Trump that was delivered yesterday. It says:
We look upon your meeting with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with horror and distaste. To say you were waiting for him to show respect and gratitude for material help given by the U.S.A. is insulting.
Gratitude is owed the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who spilled their blood in the cause of a free world. For more than eleven years, they fell on the front in the name of freedom's values and for the freedom of their fatherland, which was attacked by Putinite Russia.
We don't understand how a leader of a nation which is the symbol of the free world is unable to see that.
The atmosphere in the Oval Office reminded us of the kind of discussions that the Polish political police convened in Soviet era interrogation rooms and Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges, on the orders of the Communist political police also explained to us, that they held all the cards and we held none.
They demanded that we stop our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people were suffering due to the activities of the Solidarity opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. They took away our freedom and citizens' rights on the grounds that we didn't agree to work with the authorities and we didn't show them gratitude.
We are shocked that you treated President Zelenskyy the same way...
If you would like to read the original letter, it's here, but you better be fluent in Polish.
And that brings us to the other Russo-Ukrainian policy decision, one that the administration seems to have tried to sneak in under the radar. Secretary of "Defense" Pete Hegseth has ordered his agency to pause all cyber operations against Russia. This decision was actually announced last month, but it only became public yesterday, thanks to leaks in the Pentagon.
Hegseth is not commenting publicly, of course, and his order was extremely vague. So, it's not entirely clear how long the pause will be, the full scope of operations that will be affected, or what his reasoning for the order is. We can certainly think of legitimate reasons for this shift in policy. For example: "The CIA is better at this than the DoD, so the DoD is transferring all relevant resources and personnel." Or: "We've been spending $500 million a year on this project, with very limited results, and think we can do better spending that money elsewhere."
However, in the absence of a clear justification, and given that Team Trump tried to sneak this past everyone, doesn't Occam's razor suggest that the explanation here is that the Trump administration is in cahoots with the Russians? We don't like to be alarmist, or conspiratorial, but we've been pondering this story all day, and do not see a more logical explanation. If any readers see what we do not, and want to set us straight, the e-mail address is comments@electoral-vote.com. For what it's worth, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) is pretty Trumpy, and when he learned of this news, he could not come up with an innocent explanation, either. (Z)