Donald Trump has already weighed in on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region, and you’ll never guess what he said! You can find a quick summary here if you’re a big fan of incandescent treachery, but the gist is “Putin rules, Biden drools.” (Warning: Click on that link only if you want to listen to a former U.S. president openly root for a murderous despot at the expense of our own president and foreign ally.)
Of course, Trump also glommed onto the right’s favored explanation for why Putin decided to invade now instead of when Trump was president. According to Trump, this could have never happened during his presidency. In fact, he claims, it would have been “unthinkable.”
Well, ya know, that might actually be true, because Trump had reportedly decided to pull the U.S. out of NATO in his second term, and if he’d been successful, Putin would have had a veritable Old Country Buffet of former Soviet republics to choose from, and so he might have decided to stomp on Ukraine a bit later.
In an excerpt from Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker’s I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, the authors recount discussions between Trump and former Defense Secretary Mark Esper during which Trump vowed to withdraw from NATO if he won a second term.
Esper was a lifelong Republican and had worked at the conservative Heritage Foundation as well as for Republican senators Bill Frist and Chuck Hagel. But he told his closest colleagues that as he watched TV news anchors cover the election results, he found himself rooting for the Democrat. Esper had worked with Biden and his secretary of state in waiting, Antony Blinken, when he was a senior staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He had confidence that they were serious, stable people who cared deeply about shoring up national security. Esper couldn’t say the same about Trump. In fact, Trump had privately indicated that he would seek to withdraw from NATO and to blow up the U.S. alliance with South Korea, should he win reelection. When those alliances had come up in meetings with Esper and other top aides, some advisers warned Trump that shredding them before the election would be politically dangerous.
“Yeah, the second term,” Trump had said. “We’ll do it in the second term.”
So there’s a hint as to why Putin waited: Because if Trump had won reelection, all he’d have had to do was wait. Trump would have served Eastern Europe up to his brutal BFF on a silver platter.
Writing for the MaddowBlog, MSNBC contributor Steve Benen also argues that there was clearly no reason for Putin to rock the boat under Trump, since Trump was already pissing effervescently inside the boat in lieu of bailing.
Putin wanted to undermine the NATO alliance, and Trump undermined the NATO alliance. Putin wanted to weaken the E.U., and Trump made little effort to express his disdain for the E.U. Putin wanted to weaken the U.S. political system, and Trump was unnervingly aggressive in trying to weaken the U.S. political system.
Putin wanted to hurt Ukraine, and Trump launched an extortion scheme that threatened to hurt Ukraine.
Why didn’t the Russian leader deploy troops into Ukraine during Trump’s term? Perhaps because Putin was so pleased with an American president who pursued goals in line with Moscow’s agenda.
Uh, yeah. Putin didn’t invade Ukraine during Trump’s first term because Trump was busy unlocking all the doors from the inside. And if he’d succeeded, every NATO and non-NATO country in Putin’s imaginary sphere of influence would have been in jeopardy—not just in the short term, but in perpetuity.
One of the most prominent proponents of the “this never would have happened under Trump” crowd is National Review editor Rich Lowry, who tweeted thusly in the wake of Putin’s latest move:
That’s an interesting argument, isn’t it? We’d have been way better off with Trump because Trump is a frothing, dangerously unhinged monster who acts recklessly and irrationally as a result of his deep-seated insecurities and conspicuous lack of impulse control. Four more years!
Unfortunately for Lowry, other people are on the internet, too. Steve Schmidt, the ex-Republican strategist turned NeverTrumper, had some thoughts on Lowry’s risible assertion. (If you don’t do Twitter, you can click here to read the text.)
Enjoy:
Correct answer! We would have also accepted …
People say a lot of absurd things about Donald Trump—e.g., he’s a strong leader, a great businessman, a brilliant strategist, a genius, hygienic. I’ve always seen him as a giant, glistening meatloaf in a suit meant for a marginally less moist, single-serve meatloaf.
The idea that Putin was too afraid of him to invade another country on his watch may be the most fatuous thing I’ve ever heard, and I grew up in a Republican family that never wasted an opportunity to defend Richard Nixon.
As president, Trump wanted nothing more than to destabilize the post-World War II global order eat chocolate cake with tyrants. Biden’s victory, which Putin worked assiduously to prevent, scuttled the murder mouse’s immediate plans. Since then, Biden has successfully rallied our NATO allies. More importantly, we’re still part of NATO. Putin knew he was running out of time to stuff Ukraine into his creel, and not for nothing, he’s probably gambling on Trump or one of his confederates returning to undo democracy both here and abroad.
And if that happens, you can bet that the invasion of Ukraine will look like a midnight trip to Wisconsin.
P.S. Russia didn’t just attack the West during Trump’s regime; he specifically targeted the United States through our 2020 election and the massive SolarWinds hack. Guess Trump’s vaunted “toughness” and unpredictability didn’t do much to dissuade Putin from those provocations. And how did Trump respond to the Russian SolarWinds incursion? By deflecting blame from Putin and attempting to pin the crime on China.
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
