Thom Hartmann sees how obsequious Trump is towards Putin and wonders: “Does Putin own Trump”?
Given that he has just given Putin everything he wanted in Ukraine, it’s a natural question.
Please open the link.
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The speed with which Trump embraced the Russian view of its war on Ukraine is head-spinning. Trump said that Ukraine started the war, even though the world saw that Russia invaded Ukraine and that Russia has destroyed Ukrainian hospitals, schools, apartment houses, cultural sites, its power grid, and other non-military targets for three years. Even now, American and Russian delegations are meeting in Saudi Arabia to discuss how the war should end. Neither Ukraine nor Europe was invited.
Meanwhile, Trump lobs insults at Zelensky, calling him “grossly incompetent” and insisting that Ukraine must hold an election before peace can be reached. Zelensky was elected in 2019 with 73% of the vote while Putin had another fraudulent “election” after disposing of any other candidates. Yet today, Trump lashed out at Zelensky and called him “a dictator without elections.” Trump’s insults mirrored Russian propaganda.
After three years of international isolation, Putin has been rehabilitated by Trump and treated as the leader of a major power.
What has become clear is that Trump is hostile to our European allies and is excited to move the United States into an alliance with Putin, with Putin as the senior partner. It’s a shocking turn of events.
Heather Cox Richardson wrote about recent events:
The sixty-first Munich Security Conference, the world’s leading forum for talking about international security policy, took place from February 14 to February 16 this year. Begun in 1963, it was designed to be an independent venue for experts and policymakers to discuss the most pressing security issues around the globe.
At the conference on Friday, February 14, Vice President J.D. Vance launched what The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour called “a brutal ideological assault” against Europe, attacking the values the United States used to share with Europe but which Vance and the other members of the Trump administration are now working to destroy.
Vance and MAGA Christian nationalists reject the principles of secular democracy and instead align with leaders like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. They claim that the equal rights central to democracy undermine nations by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. They want to see an end to the immigration that they believe weakens a nation’s people, and for government to reinforce traditional religious and patriarchal values.
Vance attacked current European values and warned that the crisis for the region was not external actors like Russia or China, but rather “the threat from within.” He accused Europe of censoring free speech, but it was clear—especially coming from the representative of a regime that has erased great swaths of public knowledge because it objects to words like “gender”—that what he really objected to was restrictions on the speech of far-right ideologues.
After the rise and fall of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Germany banned Nazi propaganda and set limits on hate speech, banning attacks on people based on racial, national, religious, or ethnic background, as these forms of speech are central to fascism and similar ideologies. That hampers the ability of Germany’s far-right party Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to recruit before upcoming elections on February 23.
After calling for Europe to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,” Vance threw his weight behind AfD. He broke protocol to refuse a meeting with current German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and instead broke a taboo in German politics by meeting with the leader of AfD Trump called Vance’s speech “very brilliant.”
Bill Kristol of The Bulwark posted: “It’s heartening that today the leaders of the two major parties in Germany are unequivocally anti-Nazi and anti-fascist. It’s horrifying that today the president and vice-president of the United States of America are not.” German defense minister Boris Pistorius called Vance’s speech “unacceptable,” and on Saturday, Scholz said: “Never again fascism, never again, racism, never again aggressive war…. [T]oday’s democracies in Germany and Europe are founded on the historic awareness and realization that democracies can be destroyed by radical anti-democrats.”
Vance and the Trump administration have the support of billionaire Elon Musk in their attempt to shift the globe toward the rejection of democracy in favor of far-right authoritarianism. David Ingram and Bruna Horvath of NBC News reported today that Musk has “encouraged right-wing political movements, policies and administrations in at least 18 countries in a global push to slash immigration and curtail regulation of business.”
Musk, who cast apparent Nazi salutes before crowds on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, wrote an op-ed in favor of AfD and recently spoke by video at an AfD rally, calling it “the best hope for Germany.” In addition to his support for Germany’s AfD, Ingram and Horvath identified Musk’s support for far-right movements in Brazil, Ireland, Argentina, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, the Netherlands, and other countries. Last month, before Trump took office, French president Emmanuel Macron accused Musk of backing a global reactionary movement and of intervening directly in elections, including Germany’s.
Musk’s involvement in international politics appears to have coincided with his purchase of Twitter in 2022. And indeed, social media has been key to the project of undermining democracy. Russian operatives are now pushing the rise of the far-right in Europe through social media as they did in the United States. Russian president Vladimir Putin has long sought to weaken the democratic alliances of the United States and Europe to enable Russia to take at least parts of Ukraine and possibly other neighboring countries without the formidable resistance that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would present.
Russian state television praised Vance’s speech. One headline read: “Humiliated Europe out for the count. Its American master flogged its old vassals.” Russian pundits recognized that Vance’s turn away from Europe meant a victory for Russia.
Vance’s speech came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told other countries’ defense ministers on Wednesday, February 12, that he wanted to “directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Since 1949, the United States has stood firmly behind the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that said any attack on one of the signatories to that agreement would be an attack on all. Now, it appears, the U.S. is backing away.
In that speech, Hegseth seemed to move the U.S. toward the ideology of Russian president Vladimir Putin that larger countries can scoop up their smaller neighbors. He echoed Putin’s demands for ending its war against Ukraine, saying that “returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective” and that the U.S. will not support NATO membership for Ukraine, thus conceding to Russia two key issues without apparently getting anything in return. He also said that Europe must take over assistance for Ukraine as the U.S. focuses on its own borders.
On Wednesday, Trump spoke to Putin for nearly an hour and a half and came out echoing Putin’s rationale for his attack on Ukraine. Trump’s social media account posted that the call had been “highly productive,” and said the two leaders would visit each other’s countries, offering a White House visit to Putin, who has been isolated from other nations since his attacks on Ukraine.
Also on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky and offered U.S. support for Ukraine in exchange for half the country’s mineral resources, although it was unclear if the deal the U.S. offered meant future support or only payment for past support. The offer did not, apparently, contain guarantees for future support, and Zelensky rejected it.
On Saturday, while the Munich conference was still underway, the Trump administration announced it was sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks with Russia. Ukrainian officials said they had not been informed and had no plans to attend. European negotiators have not been invited either. While the talks are being billed as “early-stage,” the United States is sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security advisor Michael Waltz, suggesting haste.
After Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday, the Russian readout of the call suggested that Russia urgently needs relief from the economic sanctions that are crushing the Russian economy. It said the call had focused on “removing unilateral barriers inherited from the previous U.S. administration, aiming to restore mutually beneficial trade, economic, and investment cooperation.” On Friday, Russia’s central bank warned that the economy is faltering, while Orbán, an ally of both Putin and Trump, assured Hungarian state radio on Friday that Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system as soon as “the U.S. president comes and creates peace.”
But the U.S. is not speaking with one voice. Republican leaders who support Ukraine are trying to smooth over Trump’s apparent coziness with Russia. Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) called out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “rookie mistake” when he offered that the U.S. would not support Ukraine’s membership in NATO and that it was “unrealistic” for Ukraine to demand a return to its borders before Russia invaded in 2014, essentially offering to let Russia keep Crimea. Wicker said he was “puzzled” and “disturbed” by Hegseth’s comments and added: “I don’t know who wrote the speech—it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.” Carlson, a former Fox News Channel personality, has expressed admiration for Orbán and Putin.
“There are good guys and bad guys in this war, and the Russians are the bad guys,” Wicker said. “They invaded, contrary to almost every international law, and they should be defeated. And Ukraine is entitled to the promises that the world made to it.”
Today on Face the Nation, Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said: “There is absolutely no way that Donald Trump will be seen—he will not let himself go down in history as having sold out to Putin. He will not let that happen.” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark said: “I guess Republicans think this is how they manipulate Trump into doing the right thing. But Trump’s been selling out to Putin since Helsinki when he publicly sided with Putin over America’s intelligence community. And he hasn’t stopped selling out since. And the [Republican Party] lets him.”
European leaders reported being blindsided by Trump’s announcement. German leader Scholz on Friday asked Germany’s parliament to declare a state of emergency to support Ukraine, and on Sunday, European leaders met for an impromptu breakfast to discuss European security and Ukraine. Macron invited leaders to Paris on Monday to continue discussions. Representatives of Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark will attend, as will the secretary-general of NATO and the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission.
After the Munich conference, in Writing from London, British journalist Nick Cohen wrote that those Americans trying to find an excuse for the betrayal of Ukraine are deluding themselves. He wrote: “[t]he radical right in the US is not engaged in a grand geopolitical strategy. It is pursuing an ideological campaign against its true enemy, which is not China or Russia but liberalism. The US culture war has gone global. The Trump administration hates liberals at home and liberal democracies abroad.”
Proving his point, on Saturday after Vance’s speech, Trump’s social media account posted: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” This message, attributed to French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, not only claims that the president is above all laws, but also signals to supporters that they should support Trump with violence. And that is how they took it. Right-wing activist Jack Posobiec responded, “America will be saved[.] What must be done will be done,” to which Elon Musk responded: “Yes[.]”
Political scientist Stathis Kalyvas posted: “There is now total clarity, no matter how unimaginable things might seem. And they amount to this: The U.S. government has been taken over by a clique of extremists who have embarked on a process of regime change in the world’s oldest democracy…. The arrogance on display is staggering. They think their actions will increase U.S. power, but they are in fact wrecking their own country and, in the process everyone else.”
He continued: “The only hope lies in the sheer enormity of the threat: it might awake us out of our slumber before it is too late.”
Phillips P. Obrien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew’s in the UK. The title of this article on his blog at Substack is “This is Not Appeasement, It’s Worse.”
He begins:
In the last few days, the US has made concession after concession to Russia before any formal negotiations have even started. Trump has said that Putin should be allowed back into the G7, Defense Secretary Hegseth has said Ukraine should be kept out of NATO and the US forces will not provide any security guarantees for Ukraine. The US has also made it clear that Russia will be allowed to keep most/all of the Ukrainian lands it has seized, while at the same time making no new promises of aid to Ukraine.
In other words—Trump is helping Putin—at exactly the time Putin needs it most. If you have not noticed (will write more about this in the weekend update), the Russian army is really struggling right now. Its advances are slowing and its losses are extremely high. In fact, what Trump seems to be doing is offering a hand of friendship and support to Putin, when the Russian dictator and war criminal most needs it.
The Orlando Sentinel editorial board published a scathing editorial about Trump’s ridiculous idea of evicting the people of Gaza and turning their land into a luxury resort.
It said:
No president ever proposed anything so unhinged as Donald Trump’s brutal fantasy of evicting some 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and turning it into a massive real estate deal.
Trump’s “Riviera of the Middle East” is so drastic, wrong and delusional as to make people wonder whether he was serious or had just gone mad. It was obvious he hadn’t thought it through.
His apologists scrambled unconvincingly to make sense of it. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, the former Florida congressman, suggested that it was a negotiating gambit.
Trump, he said, was simply challenging Arab nations “to come with their own solutions” if they don’t like his. We appreciate that Waltz — a generally rational man with deep experience in Middle East politics — has to shoulder the burden of trying to make Trump’s erratic proclamations seem rational. (He was also the person shoved out front after Trump made the outlandish claim that a deadly plane crash was somehow caused by DEI.)
But to fulfill his role as a trusted vizier to the Oval Office, Waltz should give Trump the unvarnished truth: This kind of bizarre behavior — sincere or not — is not helping.
It’s more likely to encourage Israel to make life in Gaza even more hellish and desperate, further destabilizing Israel’s own security at a time when the current administration is likely to see U.S. equivocation as a go-ahead for more aggression.
Vintage Trump
Trump surprised Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who ventured that the displacement would be only temporary. But that’s not what Trump said.
It was, of course, vintage Trump in one respect. His entire life has been transactional, so it would be in character for him to see the tragedy, fear and hopelessness in Gaza as just another opportunity for Trump-branded hotels and casinos.
Even if it ends up as just a pipe dream, however, it’s hardly harmless.
It has subverted the already distant prospect of a Mideast peace. It caters to the current Israeli government’s worst instincts. It repudiates decades of U.S. policy and world opinion favoring a two-state solution with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. There is no other road to peace.
It has put the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza at greater risk by giving Hamas a potential pretext to renounce the ceasefire.
Stoking antisemitism
And it is certain to further inflame antisemitism in the United States and elsewhere.
Trump has mortified the nation and our government by exposing his gross ignorance of what a president should know about international law and the tangled history of the Middle East.
He should have known that it would be unthinkable for Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia ever to agree to it.
He should have known that it would be regarded everywhere as ethnic cleansing, a form of genocide comparable to what happened to the Armenians during World War I.
He should have known, but didn’t care, that Gaza’s civilians, as one said, “would rather live in tents next to their destroyed homes rather than relocate to another place.”
Worldwide condemnation
Criticism was swift and worldwide. Even Russia, right for once, called it “out of the question.”
In the U.S. Congress, most reaction ranged from speechlessness to consternation, especially over the inevitable involvement of U.S. troops.
Trump’s plan delighted the Israeli right wing at the cost of additionally compromising the Jewish state. He validated the suspicion that ethnic cleansing was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent from the outset.
Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, such as the racist Knesset member Itmar Ben-Gvir, have been open about purging Gaza of Palestinians.
“The only solution to Gaza is to encourage the migration of Gazans,” Ben-Gvir said.
White House optics
It was no coincidence that Trump sprung the scheme at the White House with Netanyahu by his side, or that the Israeli wore a red tie — Trump’s signature color — while Trump wore blue, which is symbolic of Israel.
Many believe that what Ben-Gvir said has been the strategy all along behind the excessive bombing that took thousands of civilian lives and damaged or destroyed some 60% of Gaza’s buildings, waterworks and other essential infrastructure, along with more than two-thirds of its farmland.
But Israel would never be able to deport more than 2 million people without U.S. support. That’s what makes Trump’s remarks so reckless.
The head of the Zionist Organization of America endorsed Trump’s repugnant scheme. Jewish groups that are more broad-minded and sensible reacted with concern over the fate of the hostages and revulsion at the entire idea.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal lobby J Street, said “there aren’t adequate words to express our disgust at the forcible displacement of Palestinians with the assistance of the United States of America. … We call on leaders around the world, political leaders in this country, and, of course, Jewish communal leaders in this country to express in no uncertain terms that these proposals are absolutely unacceptable — legally and morally.”
It took less than three weeks back in the Oval Office for Trump to commit a monumental foreign policy blunder. He probably won’t admit it, but he desperately needs the advice that cooler heads like Rubio, and wiser, more grounded experts like Waltz, can impart. It’s their duty, by the very nature of their roles and their duty to the American people as well as the cause of global peace, to figure out a way to get him to listen.
And if that fails, it’s past time for Congress to do something about him, starting with a resolution of disapproval. It bears remembering: Silence is consent.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Executive Editor Roger Simmons, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant, Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
© 2025 Orlando Sentinel
In his interview with Brett Baier on FOX News, Trump revealed that he is making a deal with Ukraine in exchange for our continuing to support their fight against Russian aggression. He demands control and ownership of Ukraine’s natural resources. He says Zelensky agreed.
Imagine Trump as president when World War II begins. Winston Churchill begs him to help stave off Hitler s attacks. Europe is being overrun. Bombs are hitting central London. Churchill calls Trump and pleads for help, for arms and men. Trump says, “What’s in it for us?” Whatever Churchill offers is not enough. Trump says, “We will sit this one out.” Hitler overruns Europe and England, as Trump watches from afar.
We entered the war to protect Ukraine after it was invaded by Russia. Ukraine was striving to join the West, to join the European Union, perhaps even NATO. President Biden thought it was in our national interest to prevent Putin from conquering a country that aspired to be a democracy. Most of the arms shipped to Ukraine were made in America; no American troops were deployed. It made sense to stop Putin’s aggression. It never occurred to Biden or his State Department to demand a price from a nation that was suffering daily from massive bombardments that wiped out schools, hospitals, transportation, the electrical grid, apartment buildings, museums, and whole cities, as well as thousands of innocent civilians.
Politico has the story. No paywall.
American support for Ukraine has a price tag: $500B worth of mineral riches, said U.S. President Donald Trump.
In the second part of an interview with Fox News that aired late Monday, the Republican said the U.S. should get a slice of Ukraine’s vast natural resources as compensation for the hundreds of billions it has spent on helping Kyiv resist Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“I told them [Ukraine] that I want the equivalent like $500B worth of rare earth. And they’ve essentially agreed to do that so at least we don’t feel stupid,” Trump said.
“Otherwise, we’re stupid. I said to them we have to — ‘we have to get something. We can’t continue to pay this money,’” he added.
Ukraine holds huge deposits of critical elements and minerals, from lithium to titanium, which are vital to manufacturing modern technologies. It also has vast coal reserves, as well as oil, gas and uranium, but much of this is in territories under Russian control.
According to The Boston Globe, Trump doubled down on his intention to take control of Gaza, expel its inhabitants, and develop the Gaza Strip into a luxurious resort: The Riviera of the Middle East. He said that the Palestinians who live there would not have the right to return.
This statement is making Egypt and Jordan angry, because they have refused to accept the Palestinian Gazans for fear of Hamas terrorists on their soil. It also emboldens Netanyahu and his most extreme supporters, and it threatens to upend the ceasefire and hostage releases.
Where Trump goes, chaos goes with him.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Palestinians in Gaza would not have a right to return under his plan for U.S. “ownership” of the war-torn territory, contradicting other officials in his administration who have sought to argue Trump was only calling for the temporary relocation of its population.
Less than a week after he floated his plan for the U.S. to take control of Gaza and turn it in “the Riviera of the Middle East,” Trump, in an interview with FOX News’ Bret Baier that was set to air on Monday, said “No, they wouldn’t” when asked if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory. It comes as he has ramped up pressure on Arab states, especially U.S. allies Jordan and Egypt, to take in Palestinians from Gaza, who claim the territory as part of a future homeland.
“We’ll build safe communities, a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is,” Trump said. “In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. No big money spent.”
Trump shocked almost everyone when he said in a press conference, alongside Israeli Prime minister Netanyahu, that he wanted to take control of Gaza, move out the Gazan population, clear the rubble, and turn the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
In response to worldwide condemnation, his aides tried to “walk back” what he said, but he said out loud what he believes. He is dangerous at all times, because no one knows for sure what he will say or do. His press secretary said that the U.S. would not pay for what Trump wants to do, nor would it send troops. In that case, Trump’s bold statement was a nothing burger. But anyone who saw the news conference heard what he said. Since he lies the way other people breathe, everyone is left to believe whatever they want.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had been thinking about this idea for a while and discussing it with aides. Some analysts thought his proposal was a negotiating ploy, meant for shock value. Others think he’s serious.
WASHINGTON—President Trump campaigned on shrinking America’s role abroad. But since taking office, he has articulated a worldview that is at times closer to expansionism than isolationism.
Trump generated global shock waves Tuesday when he said the U.S. should take long-term control of Gaza, suggesting that Palestinians should be relocated while the enclave is rebuilt into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media that Trump would “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”
Taking control of the hotly contested territory would put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most complicated diplomatic and national-security conflicts, raising the prospect that Trump is signing the country up for exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid. Trump didn’t rule out sending American troops to Gaza to accomplish his goals.
“The old Republican Party of RINOs, neocons and globalists is gone. And it is never coming back,” Trump said at a 2023 GOP dinner in Florida. As he prepared to take office, Trump made clear that he wouldn’t hire national security officials that he deemed to be too closely associated with traditional neoconservative values.
Tuesday’s announcement marked a striking shift for Trump, who described the Middle East as “blood and sand” in his first term, according to a longtime adviser. Trump is now proposing to rebuild Gaza, which his own aides say could take 10 to 15 years.
Two Trump administration officials said the idea of the Gaza takeover was formed recently, with the president running it by aides and allies in recent days. The proposal was closely held, other administration officials who work on Middle East issues said. Officials outside of Trump’s inner circle weren’t aware the idea was on the table during days of planning for the meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump’s proposal stunned even some of his most ardent and influential supporters in the Jewish community. A longtime pro-Israel Trump fundraiser who has raised money for the president for years called the idea “insane” and questioned how it could be executed, noting this type of policy would likely take well over a year to complete with too many unknown variables for it to be done smoothly.
Netanyahu said during the press conference that one of his key goals was to ensure Gaza wouldn’t host terrorists again. Trump, he continued, took that concept “to a much higher level.”
“It is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue….”
Trump’s Gaza proposal also shows that the president is leaning on his long history as a businessman and real-estate developer, viewing the world as a canvas in which to expand America’s influence—and cement his legacy…
Glimmers of Trump’s thinking on Gaza have surfaced in public and in private.
“You know, Gaza’s interesting, it’s a phenomenal location, on the sea, the best weather. Everything’s good. Some beautiful things could be done with it,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 20, after being sworn in. A reporter asked if he would help with rebuilding. “I might,” Trump said….
In late summer, Trump told Netanyahu in a phone call that the Gaza Strip was a prime piece of real estate and asked him to think about what kinds of hotels could be built there, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. But he didn’t mention the U.S. taking it over. He also told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this fall that Ukraine would be a good spot for real-estate development, particularly mentioning the city of Odesa, a person present during the discussion said….
Trump made a similar case to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first term, hoping the allure of hotels and development along the country’s coastlines would encourage Kim to dismantle his nuclear arsenal.
The New York Times reported that the Musk team was not transparent about its intrusion into the Treasury payment system. It said that it was just “reviewing,” but its real goal was to close down payments for foreign aid. You know, the money that sends American grain to starving people and that supplies medicine and care to desperate people in places like Africa and India.
Forgive the circumlocutions, but I keep looking for polite ways to say they lied. They weren’t there to do a quick Look-see. There were there to stop payments to USAID. They believed that Trump’s executive order overrode the laws. If that were the case, then the U.S. would truly be a dictstorship, where Trump held total power.
For some reason, Trump and Musk hate helping impoverished people, especially if they are not white.
In the days after President Trump took office, as Elon Musk’s team began pressing for access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, officials repeatedly said that their goal was to undertake a general review of the system. They said they would observe, but not stop money from going out the door.
But emails reviewed by The New York Times show that the Treasury’s chief of staff originally pushed for Tom Krause, a software executive affiliated with Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, to receive access to the closely held payment system so that the Treasury could freeze U.S. Agency for International Development payments.
In a Jan. 24 email to a small group of Treasury officials, the chief of staff, Dan Katz, wrote that Mr. Krause and his team needed access to the system so they could pause U.S.A.I.D. payments and comply with Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order to halt foreign aid.
“To the extent permitted by law, we would like to implement the pause as soon as possible in order to ensure that we are doing our role to comply with the EO,” Mr. Katz wrote.
The emails viewed by The Times undercut the Treasury’s explanation for why Mr. Krause and his team were given access to the payment system last week. That system disburses more than $5 trillion in funding on behalf of much of the federal government.
The department, now led by Secretary Scott Bessent, has said that Mr. Krause, a Treasury staff member, and his team are conducting an “operational efficiency assessment” that does not involve blocking agency payments.
The possibility of systems at the Treasury’s little-known Bureau of the Fiscal Service being used to stop congressionally authorized spending has stoked alarm among Democrats, who have called for investigations and led protests at the Treasury building.
David Lebryk, formerly the top career official at the Treasury, rebuffed the request to grant access and pause the aid payments.
“I don’t believe we have the legal authority to stop an authorized payment certified by an agency,” he wrote to the group on Jan. 24. Mr. Lebryk, who had been a federal employee for more than 35 years, was pushed out of his job days later for refusing to give Mr. Krause access to the system. Late on Jan. 31, a Friday, Mr. Bessent authorized entry for a team led by Mr. Krause after Mr. Lebryk’s departure.
All of this is illegal. Congress is responsible for funding.
There have always been reasons to worry about Trump’s mental acuity–his sense of grandiosity, his constant boasting, his memory lapses, his serial lies, his frequent confusion of names–but now there is more reason to worry.
Yesterday he said in a press conference that he wants all the people who live in the Gaza Strip to move somewhere else, leaving their land to be cleared and developed by Americans. Trump wants to turn Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” A few years back, his son-in-law Jared Kushner speculated that Gaza’s beachfront made it ideal as a setting for luxury resorts.
Jared has since moved on to other promising spots, like Albania, where he plans to build a $1.4 billion luxury mega-resort on an island, investing some of the billions that the Saudis gave him.
Apparently, Trump’s basic instincts as a developer have come to the fore. Aside from the fact that Arab nations are opposed to Trump’s plan, there is one obvious problem: What to do with the Gazans who live there? He hasn’t figured that out yet, and to date the other Arab nations have loudly said that they don’t want the Gazans.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stood with Trump and loved what he heard. It bolsters him with his rightwing coalition partners, according to the Israeli publication Ha’aretz, and bolsters his intransigence. How he would love to have an American-owned strip of land on his borders.
Trump doesn’t want to help rebuild Gaza; he wants to own it.
Milbank wrote:
“Genocide Joe” never looked so good.
Gaza peace protesters rallied Americans by the hundreds of thousands to oppose President Joe Biden and vote “uncommitted” in Democratic primaries. They heckled Vice President Kamala Harris and disrupted her events.
On Election Day, Donald Trump prevailed in the majority-Arab town of Dearborn, Michigan. And across the country, many young voters stayed home or even voted for Trump — likely because, in part, they were disenchanted that the Biden administration had been insufficiently tough on Israel.
How’s that working out now?
Trump, hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, made the stunning declaration that he wants all Palestinians removed from Gaza — permanently.
“All of them,” Trump said. “I mean, we’re talking about probably a million-seven people, a million-seven, maybe a million-eight. But I think all of them. I think they’ll be resettled in areas where they can live a beautiful life and not be worried about dying every day.”
And what would become of Gaza after all Palestinians were evicted? At a formal news conference with Netanyahu in the East Room a couple of hours later, Trump unveiled his next proposal: “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip. … We’ll own it.”
Huh?
“You are talking tonight about the U.S. taking over a sovereign territory. What authority would allow you to do that?” an incredulous Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News asked. “Are you talking about a permanent occupation?”
“I do see a long-term ownership position,” Trump answered, as though the Palestinian enclave were a hotel property on the market. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent.”
Greenland, Panama, Canada and now Gaza: The sun will never set on Trump’s colonial empire.
A moment later, the president said he was also considering evicting the Palestinians from the West Bank and awarding that territory to Israel.
“We’re discussing that,” Trump said when asked about giving Israel control over biblical “Judea and Samaria,” which includes the West Bank. “And people do like the idea.” He promised an announcement “on that very specific topic over the next four weeks.”
From the river to the sea, Palestine will cease to exist. As those uncommitted voters now know: Elections have consequences.
Trump’s elimination of all Palestinian land went even farther than Netanyahu’s expansionist designs — but the prime minister liked what he heard. “President Trump is taking it to a much higher level,” he said at Tuesday’s news conference. “I think it’s something that could change history and it’s worth us really pursuing this.” Netanyahu took multiple opportunities to bash Biden and to gush over Trump for sending him weapons that Biden had withheld, and for lifting Biden’s sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of violence in the West Bank.
Trump was proposing an act of towering cruelty. The world still hasn’t figured out what to do about the existing Palestinian refugees — 1.5 million of whom live in refugee camps in the region. Now, Trump plans to make refugees of some 2 million additional Palestinians. Or perhaps 5 million more, if he’s also planning to evict them from the West Bank.
But Trump presented his plans to remove Palestinians from their homeland as a humanitarian gesture. “Gaza is not a place for people to be living,” he reasoned during his Oval Office session. Though he hasn’t actually visited the place, “I’ve seen every picture from every angle, better than if I were there. And nobody can live there.”
Journalists reported the story as if this was a realistic proposal by the American President. But it is not. It’s madness. It violates international laws (but we know by now that Trump thinks he is not constrained by law.) It is raw imperialism and colonialism. It is wildly impractical. It is the proposal of a man who is unhinged, out of touch with reality: a madman. We always have known that Trump creates chaos wherever he goes. The only thing more absurd that he neglected to mention is that the Trump Organization would get the contract to clear and rebuild the Riviera of the Middle East.
John Manley was a deputy prime minister and minister of finance in Jean Chrétien’s government in Canada.
He loves Trump’s idea of uniting Canada and the United States. Democrats should love it too. Republicans would never again win the presidency!
“I am so excited about this, Mr. Trump – I can already see the 60 little maple leaves on the flag with 13 stripes!”
His article appeared in The Globe & Mail, a major newspaper in Canada.
Dear Donald Trump,
My mentor and former boss, prime minister Jean Chrétien, has dismissed your suggestion that Canada and the U.S. merge.
Don’t despair. My point of view differs somewhat from his (sorry, Boss). I think we may be able to make this work if Canadians fully understand your proposal.
Imagine what the “United States of Canada” could be. We would marry American ingenuity and entrepreneurship to Canada’s natural resources, underdog toughness and culture of self-effacing politeness to create a powerful, world-dominating country.
We would be the largest land mass in the world. We would be self-reliant in every respect (food, energy, minerals, water). We would attract the world’s most talented people. We would truly be “the best country in the world,” to use Mr. Chrétien’s words, and would dominate international hockey competitions. Your idea is truly brilliant.
As you know from your corporate experience, for any successful merger, the devil is in the details, but I have some suggestions.
First, Canada could never simply be the 51st state. Canada consists of 10 states (we call them “provinces”) and three territories. Each of our provinces exists for historical reasons and citizens feel a deep loyalty to their province.
So we would need to be the 51st to 60th states. With two senators for each state, of course. Our 20 senators will no doubt bring fresh ideas to the institution that will help make the United States of Canada truly great!
Some issues that cause division and frustration in your country are considered settled by political parties of all stripes in Canada, so I suggest adopting Canadian consensus in the interest of making this deal work.
For example, there is no argument in Canada over women’s reproductive rights. There! That hot-button issue is resolved for you! (You can thank me later.)
All Canadian politicians support our single-payer health care system because no one is refused treatment for their inability to pay and no one goes broke because they suffer a catastrophic illness. In effect, all of our citizens have lifetime critical illness insurance provided by the government. And while it’s expensive, our system costs considerably less than yours, with 100 per cent of the population covered! Your citizens will love it, I promise.
I would also observe that Canadians have long preferred to live with many fewer firearms than are tolerated in the United States. The result is a drastically lower rate of deaths and injuries caused by gun violence in Canada. Our gun laws would make the country safer than it is, and safer is definitely greater!
We have some other innovations that you may wish to consider. Our Canada Pension Plan, equivalent to your Social Security, is fully funded and actuarially sound. This requires higher contributions, but it pays off with solvency. I believe your Social Security runs out of money in the near future. (That’s not great, is it?)
Lower personal income taxes paid in the U.S. are a great attraction. But our programs to support both seniors and young families to reduce the worst cases of poverty among them help make society more cohesive and fair. That’s one of the reasons our taxes have been higher.
Oh, and we must consider how we fund government expenses. We’re struggling to bring our deficit back down, but it wasn’t that long ago (2015) that our budget was effectively balanced. In fact, for more than a decade prior to the global financial crisis, Canada ran surplus budgets. In addition to spending discipline, our national value-added tax, the GST, was key. You definitely want to adopt that! In fact, you will love it! (Canadians don’t love it, but their governments do. And it beats borrowing money from the Chinese.)
There are many smaller details that I am sure we can work out. You will enjoy the simplicity of the metric system for weights and measures, for example. Oh, but we’re not crazy, you can keep yards for football! And you will love that sport even more when you play it on a bigger field with only three downs.
I am so excited about this, Mr. Trump. You are truly a visionary leader to have come up with this idea. I can already see the 60 little maple leaves on the flag with 13 stripes! I am ready to throw myself into this great project of making the United States of Canada great again! (Oh, that’s too long. Let’s just call our new country “Canada.”)
Respectfully, as I dislodge my tongue from my cheek,
John Manley
Diane Ravitch's blog 