Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, was subjected to a second brutal Trump ambush in the Oval Office last Friday. This time, the cameras were not allowed to witness the idiot king’s brutish behaviour.
But the Financial Times broke the story, which was based on accounts of eyewitnesses, that Donald Trump engaged in a shouting match, swearing at Zelenskiy, throwing a map showing the Ukraine boundaries and front lines aside. Zelenskiy was informed that Trump was sick of seeing the map, did not know where the areas in question were, and he, Trump, had never been there.
He demanded that Zelenskiy should cede the entire Donbas and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, partly occupied currently by the Russian and North Korean invaders, to Vladimir Putin. He said Putin’s invasion was not a war but was a “special operation”. He demanded that Ukraine should concede Russia’s territorial demands or be destroyed.
The idiot king told Zelenskiy that the Russian economy was “doing great” – this despite a very recent Trump claim that Putin had better negotiate because his “economy is going to collapse”.
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Gone was the weeks-long US policy position – adopted after the meeting with Putin in Alaska and the intensification of the Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine – that the United States would help Ukraine by providing arms (as long as Europe paid for them).
As one letter writer to this paper wondered on Tuesday, how has Trump yet again pirouetted on the Ukraine war in the aftermath of an earlier, lengthy private phone call with Putin? What has Putin said or threatened to produce this volte-face?
What exactly does Putin hold over the cowardly US president? Does he threaten nuclear war if the US uses armaments or sanctions to assist Ukraine? Does Trump believe – yet again – that Ukraine started the war (sorry, the “special operation”)?
Or can it be that Trump – in addition to being the man destroying the US economy and the fabric of its democracy – believes that America’s military strength can be deployed only against military weaklings? Are US soldiers only to be deployed in Washington, Portland or Chicago? Is its air power to be used illegally against alleged drug smugglers in international waters?
Trump rails against China – not because of suppression of human rights there – but because China is strong enough to use its economy to downface his tariff threat bluster
It may be that the millions of Americans who took to the streets of US cities in nationwide “No Kings” demonstrations are now the real enemy, while Putin is the idiot king’s ally. Trump’s plummeting poll approval rate may have spooked him about the prospects of losing control of both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. It may be the case that redistricting congressional electoral boundaries is Trump’s only real response to faltering employment statistics, the falling value of the US dollar and the toxic effects of his failing tariff war with China.
Trump has gravely miscalculated in his face-off with China’s communist-capitalist government. He rails against China – not because of suppression of human rights there – but because China is strong enough to use its command economy to downface his tariff threat bluster. The US threatens tariffs and sanctions. But China can turn on and off America’s supply of vital rare earths at will. To use Chairman Mao’s phrase, America is proving itself a “paper tiger”.
Paper money and its electronic cousin – cryptocurrency – may fuel a partial boom on Wall Street and line pockets of super-rich cronies hovering around the White House. But many now see the likely collapse of an inflated US paper economy currently hooked up to an artificial intelligence investment lifeline drip.
Like the biblical inscription by unseen hand – “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Peres” (counted, weighed, divided) that appeared portending collapse on the wall at King Belshazzar’s feast in the Book of Daniel – omens are appearing even in advance of the construction of Trump’s $250 million (€215 million) ballroom and dining hall in the grounds of the White House.
The fabric of American democracy is disintegrating. Packing courts, deploying troops in the streets, prosecuting political critics and erstwhile allies, threatening to de-license broadcast networks, suing media for billions of dollars, abusing the presidency to float cryptocurrency scams to enrich the first family, betraying allies and appeasing powerful opponents, and convening a toe-curling meeting of America’s military generals to hear their commander-in-chief’s demented meanderings – all point to disintegration, not greatness.
How has the US lost its network of trusting allies across the free world? Who trusts the US in the reign of the capricious, vengeful idiot king? How could anyone trust the arbitrary, weathervane foreign policy antics of the Trump-Vance-Rubio travelling circus?
[ Trump may have helped to broker an uneasy ceasefire in Gaza, but at what price?Opens in new window ]
How does the White House implement its rickety Gaza peace plan, already fraying badly at the edges simply because there was no international peace force ready to deploy in that devastated wasteland – the Israeli and US war crime scene? They can’t even restrain Israel for a fortnight from resuming their lethal air strikes.
The wonder is that Trump still has a hard-right, pro-life band of “sneaking regarders” in Ireland who often reveal their true selves in anonymous online social media postings.
