Who’s driving the clown car?
Who is actually running Donald Tump’s White House amidst his Learish decline that has been on display for months? “He is acting like a man who is cornered, terrified, and irrational,” Tom Nichols writes in The Atlantic. Perhaps the man who famously has no real friends feels he needs one.
So Trump’s beaming press availability on Friday after his meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was unexpected and completely out of character. It was further proof that the once and future god-emperor of Mar-a-Lago is a chocolate mess. (Those of a certain age know the reference.) The usual Trump > Fox > Trump propaganda loop has broken down or else Trump is so addled that he’s not watching. Tokyo Rose Garden (Karoline Leavitt) is going to snap her own neck in how fast she’ll have to pivot from calling Mamdani a communist to his being Trump’s new best friend.
“South Park” writers will be working nights. Satan will be so-o-o-o jealous.
Now add to the list of Trump’s Epstein distractions, his 28-point peace proposal for Ukraine and Russia. Ponder this observation on Trump’s peace plan from The Guardian:
Some of the phrases in the US’s “peace proposal” for Ukraine appear to have been originally written in Russian. In several places the language would work in Russian but seems distinctly odd in English.
The third point of the 28-point plan reads: “It is expected that Russia will not invade neighbouring countries and Nato will not expand further.”
“It is expected” is a clunky passive construction in English. The Russian version – ожидается or ozhidayetsya – makes more sense and is a familiar verb form.Other Russianisms that appear to have crept into the text include неоднозначности (ambiguities) and “закрепить” (to enshrine).
The White House has acknowledged Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s envoy, wrote the proposal together with Donald Trump’s special representative Steve Witkoff. The pair hammered out the text during a meeting in Miami.Ukraine and its European partners were excluded from the drafting process.
PeskovKremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insists that Ukraine negotiate now or it risks losing even more territory. Bold talk for a government that’s been stymied in gaining ground through force of arms. Russia has suffered heavy combat casualties in Ukraine.
The Guardian continues:
The full details are not clear but the key tenets of the 28-point deal – reported first by Axios, the FT and the New York Times – are believed to include a demand for Ukraine to cede the rest of the Russian-occupied eastern Donbas region, cut its armed forces by half and reduce or altogether abandon certain types of weaponry, particularly long-range missiles that could hit targets in Russia.
That would mean Ukraine voluntarily handing over areas of its territory to Russia that Moscow has been unable to take by force.
Kyiv would also be expected to agree to reducing or halting US military assistance. Any future deployment of western troops to Ukraine – as envisaged by the Franco-British-led “coalition of the willing” – would also be banned.
As part of the deal, Ukraine and Europe could get some US security guarantees against future Russian aggression, although no details were reported of what this could entail.
BBC:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Kyiv risks losing US support over a White House plan on how to end the war with Russia.
Addressing the nation on Friday, Zelensky said Ukraine “might face a very difficult choice: either losing dignity, or risk losing a key partner”, adding that “today is one of the most difficult moments in our history”.
One thing Zelensky doesn’t risk losing is Trump’s mind. Trump lost that some time ago.
Zelensky remains focused:
“We’re not making loud statements,” he went on, “we’ll be calmly working with America and all the partners… offering alternatives” to the proposed peace plan.
Zelensky also said he had been reassured of continuous support during a phone call with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
(h/t DJ)
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