We’ve all seen it by now. The tough guys piling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. Berating him, talking over him. Telling him he hasn’t said thank you enough for all the American military aid we’ve given his country to defend itself from Trump’s buddy Vladimir Putin. Trump sat forward, waving his hands around saying Zelensky has no chance without going along with a ceasefire deal with no guarantees from the Untied States to back it up if Putin violates it. Oh, don’t forget the hundreds of millions of dollars in minerals he wants from Ukraine as payback. Let’s take a closer look at the characters here.
Zelenskyy was elected president in 2019. He was an actor-comedian with no political experience. We all became aware of him after “the perfect phone call” where Trump tried to get Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter who was on the board of a Ukrainian power company in return for aid. It led to Trump’s first impeachment. A couple of years later, Putin invaded Ukraine. Zelenskyy is in a life and death fight to save his country. Thousands of soldiers and civilians were dying everyday. America sent about $116 billion dollars in aid and weapons. Biden pledged to have Zelenskyy’s back.
Trump was elected the first time as the most inexperienced person ever elected president. He had no political or military experience. Trump is the tough guy who got several deferments from the military draft during the Vietnam War after examinations by a podiatrist who rented an office in one of Trump’s father’s buildings. Bone spurs in his heels. Trump has no respect for the military. To overcome his cowardice, he degrades people who have died for their country. Atlantic Magazine wrote about Trump’s visit to Paris in 2018. He was scheduled to fly to a military cemetery where Americans were buried. He said he had to cancel because the helicopter couldn’t fly in the rain and the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him. The Atlantic spoke with four people who were there. They said Trump didn’t want to get his hair wet. They quoted him as saying, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s full losers.” He also has been quoted as saying eighteen hundred marines killed at Belleau Wood in World War I were “suckers”.
Junior bully JD Vance did serve four years in the marines. He served as a military journalist in Iraq and never saw combat. When Zelenskyy asked if Vance had ever visited Ukraine. He said it was a dog and pony saw, but he did watch video.
A quick look at history, something of which Trump has no understanding. When Great Britain was desperate for help in the first two years of World War II, it turned to Franklin Roosevelt for help. While Roosevelt needed a better reason he enter the war at the time, he got congress to pass the Lend Lease Bill in March, 1941, which supplied Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union with $5.98 billion dollars in military aid and equipment and that held off Hitler until we entered the war after Pearl Harbor. Churchill came to visit the White House in December, 1941, right after Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt invited him to stay for a couple of weeks. Not sure if he asked Churchill to say thank you.
One last thing. Zelenskyy has been wearing black or olive sweaters and pants with the Ukrainian symbol. He does this to show solidarity with the soldiers on the front line. He wears it everywhere. Trump made fun of it when he greeted Zelenskyy at the door of the White House. Trump mocked him to reporters saying Zelenskyy got all dressed up. This from a guy who let Elon Musk hold court in the Oval Office dressed in a black tee shirt and coat with a black “Make America Great Again” hat while he lifted one of his kids up his shoulders as Trump sat there and watched.
European countries are finally realizing they can’t count on the bully in the Oval Office. He’s too busy bowing to the bully in Russia.
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