America’s descent into chaos and depravity was announced ten years ago at a press conference. Donald Trump, who had just been inaugurated president at the 2016 Republican National Convention, invited one of America’s enemies to hack the emails of Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 30,000 missing emails,” he said. “I think you will probably be greatly rewarded by our press.”
The call comes just days after the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee following the hack of the organization’s computer servers, which was widely believed to have been carried out by Russian agents. As would become the custom over the next decade, many dismissed Trump’s remarks as mere trolling that was not meant to be taken seriously.
This was not the first time he had invoked Russia. Throughout the primary season, Trump gushed in multiple interviews about Russian President Vladimir Putin and signaled his intention to move closer to Putin once in power. Trump even defended the dictator’s extrajudicial killings, blithely explaining: “Our country does a lot of murder.” But the press conference marked the first time he enlisted Russia as an ally.
The overtures continued throughout Trump’s first term, most infamously when he sided with Putin during a bilateral meeting over America’s own intelligence agencies, which had discovered that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. The president suggested an operation to share “election integrity” between the two countries, a proposal that made it clear that Putin had Trump around his little finger.
Then came Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Throughout the 2024 election, Trump has pledged to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office – or being elected. (His rhetoric changed often.) He apparently thought he could telephone Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and order him to surrender immediately or face his powerful wrath. Needless to say, that didn’t happen, and since then, Trump has become increasingly frustrated at being shown to be nothing more than a paper tiger, a frustration that has now come to a head due to his abject failure in the Iran war. Desperate for a “victory” – by which he means a Russian victory – the president is now completely selling out Ukraine to his good friend Vlad.
Trump is increasingly frustrated that he is nothing more than a paper tiger, a frustration that has now come to a head due to his abject failure in the Iran war. Desperate for a “victory” – by which he means a Russian victory – the president is now completely selling out Ukraine to his good friend Vlad.
In recent days, Trump signed an executive order temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil. Although it is supposed to guarantee the supply of diesel fuel to the United States, whose prices have soared due to the president’s chosen war against Iran, this law is in practice a sign of goodwill towards Putin, America’s enemy, and will help him finance his war against Ukraine, our former ally. Days later, Trump lifted several additional sanctions that a bipartisan majority of Congress had passed just weeks ago at the request of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who foolishly believed he had the president under his control.
Worse, in what will go down as one of the most appalling betrayals by a U.S. president in history, Trump and his good friend Elon Musk apparently sabotaged Ukrainian intelligence by slowing down the Starlink and Starshield communications systems that the country relies on for its defensive and offensive weapons systems. Russia quickly took advantage of this favor and unleashed one of the most massive bombings of the war, killing civilians and hitting Ukraine’s energy sector. Trump has also called for Zelensky’s departure, and in an interview with Bloomberg published Sunday, the Ukrainian president accused Trump of pushing the country to surrender to Russia.
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Trump has a number of apparent reasons for these decisions. He wants to be seen before the midterm elections as doing something about the price of gasoline and diesel. But it is a crisis he has created because of his misbegotten war in Iran, for which he has no way to resolve the problem. His ongoing war has changed global energy markets in ways that are difficult to correct, which explains why no president before him has been stupid enough to attack Iran. So now Trump is blaming Ukraine because it is bombing Russian oil refineries and demanding they stop so Russia can sell its diesel — and finance its war, which led to the sanctions in the first place. We must not forget that Russia is a staunch ally of Iran and is helping it fight us, which Trump called “nothing.” Some would argue that this could constitute providing “aid and comfort” to the American enemy.
During this time, the fingers are pointed in several directions. Musk said the government was responsible for the Starlink/Starshield bet. According to Pentagon sources, the order came from the White House. Trump claimed he knew nothing about it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shrugged: “It just happened.” Now, lest the Europeans get it in their heads that they should try to bolster their own defenses by limiting Starlink in favor of a European-based system, the U.S. government is reportedly threatening them with “devastating” or “destructive” economic retaliation.
As the icing on the cake of the administration’s full embrace of Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported that Putin held a summit with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to decide the fate of Ukraine. (On Monday, Trump told reporters he was open to a meeting but denied it would focus on Ukraine, saying he wanted to discuss denuclearization.) If Trump knew a story, he would know that such a meeting would turn out to be his Yalta, the trilateral conference between President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin that divided Europe in the aftermath of World War II. The summit was widely seen by the right as “the Yalta betrayal” because the Soviets were left with Eastern Europe, but things changed within the Republican Party.
The summit is clearly aimed at elevating Russia to superpower status, which it is by no means in an economic or military sense, and demonstrating a new order in which Trump, Putin and Xi rule the world. In reality, Putin and Xi now make the United States dance to their rhythm, giving them the power and influence to dominate their respective spheres.
The president’s blatant betrayal of Ukraine is a scandal that appears to have awakened some sleeping Republicans, who know they risk being defeated in the fast-approaching midterm elections. We do not know if this will raise enough awareness to really intervene and put an end to this abuse of trust. But the mere fact that Trump went this far to ease his ego, defy his critics by supporting Putin even more fervently, and invent a lame excuse for what may be the worst national security decision in American history leaves this country weaker, poorer, and arousing more distrust around the world. It hardly seems possible, but we have reached yet another new low.
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