1/Thread. Before Ukraine Affair blew up I wrote abt an alarming alignment in recent months of US foreign policy with Russia's. The thread below goes into detail. Afghanistan, Venezuela, Iran, Brexit, G7 mtg, Syria...
This re-embrace of Putin by Trump needs far more attention.
This re-embrace of Putin by Trump needs far more attention.
2/In the thread I referenced Trump holding back aid to Ukraine, who is fighting a war with Russia, as another pro-Putin move.
3/As Ukraine Affair has unfolded, kept returning to how we first became truly alarmed abt Trump's relationship w/Putin. It was at the GOP Convention, when Trump/Manafort gutted GOP commitment to provide Ukraine lethal weapons to fight Russia. Familiar? washingtonpost.com/opinions/globa…
4/Reminder that Trump made Manafort Chairman of his campaign, a man whose last major client was recently deposed Russian backed leader of Ukraine. By choosing Manafort, Trump was bringing on someone who had worked openly against the West and for Russia. time.com/5003623/paul-m…
5/Insuring Ukraine ended up aligning w/the West was a major project of US-Europe after Manafort's man was deposed in 2014. Biden's efforts there were critical to Ukraine freeing itself from corrupt pro Russian oligarchical rule. vox.com/policy-and-pol…
6/In 2014, shortly after Russia lost Ukraine politically, they invaded and the Russian-Ukrainian war began, a war which is still waging today. washingtonpost.com/world/russias-…
7/Trump's call on July 25th to Zelenskiy came just days after his successful election, which was a huge victory for the Western project to help Ukraine become a modern, Western style democracy. Z's central plank of course was fighting against corruption reuters.com/article/us-ukr…
8/Rather than celebrating Ukraine's success in that July 25th call, Trump crapped all over it. He withheld promised arms to fight Russia. He pressured a new clean President to go deep into Ukraine's dark past to help him win his election here in the US. vox.com/policy-and-pol…
9/And then a few weeks later, the President of the United States at a G7 meeting essentially endorsed Russia's annexation of Crimea - which was another implicit threat to the new Ukrainian President. cnn.com/2019/08/27/pol…
10/Reflecting back on these last few weeks what stands out was how risky it was for Trump to do what he did with Ukraine. He broke the law, re-opened TrumpRussia. Yes it shows his political desperation, as I outline below. ndn.org/blog/2019/09/d…
11/But what if Ukraine Affair not just abt his domestic troubles. As I outline in the thread below, in recent months Trump has aligned US w Russia everywhere in the world - except Ukraine. Was all this also abt destablizing new govt too, as gift to Putin?
12/What this means is that it is inevitable that any sustained look into the Ukraine Affair will also have to look at Trump's extraordinary fealty to Putin, and what happened back in 2016. TrumpRussia returns.
13/Earlier in this thread I raised the question of whether Trump was purposefully trying to weaken Zelenskiy on Putin's behalf. Read out released today appeared harmful to Z - he's toadyish, far too pro-Trump, too anti-Europe. Turns out Trump f-ed him.
14/Beating up Zelenskiy, weakening him serves 2 purposes. 1) It makes Russia happy. 2) Makes Z more likely to play ball w/Trump on Biden. What Trump did today was take his campaign to get Z to help him public - was out there for all of us to see, live.
15/It gets worse.
16/Level of depravity here hard to get your head around.
17/Just so we are clear - the first ask the President made of Zelenskiy on 7/25 was help in exonerating Russia - Ukraine's enemy - from charges it interfered in the US election. The Ukraine Affair is as much abt Putin as it is abt Trump's re-elect. msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-…
18/Trump's obsession with destroying Biden, while perhaps what is needed domestically, is also about eliminating the leading Dem whose been toughest on Russia, instrumental in pulling Ukraine into the West. Like HRC, Putin doesn't want Biden.
19/And this is what makes this moment so hard, important - here in US and across the world Trump is aligned w/Putin. They are allied, partners. It's impossible to dis-aggregate their interests. This dangerous reality must be core to the discussion ahead.
