After Friday’s very public Donald Trump/JD Vance ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Republican Party has been divided. On one side, you have those who know Vladimir Putin is a threat but are trying not to piss off Trump. On the other side, you have Trump sycophants who will follow him off the Russian asset cliff.
This week's Sunday shows had both kinds, so let’s dive in!
Enough With The Ukraine-Splaining!
Former GOP senator and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on ABC’s “This Week” trying to politically Zamboni over Trump and Vance’s embarrassing performance on Friday.
In the interview, he made excuses for Trump’s deference towards Putin and his willingness to insult our Ukrainian ally.
RUBIO: You’re not going to bring him to the table if you're calling them names, if you’re being antagonistic. […]
STEPHANOPOULOS: […] Why is it OK to call President Zelenskyy a – why is it OK to call President Zelenskyy a dictator, but not, as you say, call Vladimir Putin names?
RUBIO: Listen, we've spent three years calling Vladimir Putin names. That's not the point.
Is correctly naming the dictator who invaded Ukraine unprovoked “calling names”?
It’s clear from the administration’s refusal to even acknowledge that Russia is the aggressor and its berating of Zelenskyy while trying to extort mineral rights that Trump has chosen to align with Putin. That’s why people like Rubio have been trying to spin that Zelenskyy is the problem.
RUBIO: [W]hat Zelenskyy did unfortunately, is he found every opportunity to try to Ukraine-splain on every issue. Then, he confronts the vice president. When the vice president says the goal here is diplomacy, he immediately jumps in and challenges the vice president.
“Challenges the vice president” by “Ukraine-splaining”? Oh, fuck off!
If that’s “challenging,” Marco Rubio should probably scrub this 2014 video from his official YouTube channel.
Marco Rubio has always been an empty suit politician. If you’ll recall, he was one of the “Gang of Eight” who negotiated a bipartisan immigration reform bill only to torpedo it himself. He also knows exactly who Putin is, and what the stakes here are, since he was the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee when it released its (much harsher than Mueller) report on Russia’s attack on the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s contacts with the rogue nation.
Rubio never lets principles get in the way of his political ambitions, which is how he found himself slinking into a couch next to JD Vance in the Oval Office during the aforementioned meltdown.
And Then There’s Russia-Splaining.
Director Of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — AKA Russia’s girlfriend — appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to earn her Trump gold star board points.
Gabbard got to work proving herself when, after host Shannon Bream pointed out a poll showing that Trump’s favorable position toward Putin is out of step with American public opinion, Gabbard asserted that Trump’s stance is being “celebrated” by the American public.
Bream gave Gabbard an easy opportunity to criticize Putin, but Gabbard chose to belch out the Kremlin’s morning email instead (allegedly!):
GABBARD: Many of these European countries, and Zelensky himself, who claim to be standing and fighting for the cause of freedom and democracy when we actually look at what’s happening, in reality in these countries as well as Zelenskyy’s government in Ukraine, is the exact opposite. You have the cancellation of elections […] political parties being silenced, or even criminalized or thrown in prison. […] You have total government control of the media […] issues that go against the values of democracy and freedom. […] It’s clear they’re standing against Putin […] But what are they actually really fighting for? And are they aligned with the values that they claim to hold in agreement with us?
We’ll have more on Tulsi Gabbard in another post. But really, if the Kremlin sent out a morning email full of daily talking points, how would it be different from every word out of Tulsi Gabbard’s mouth?
We are just asking.
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Curious about whether Gabbard was asked even ONE question about her purge of trans employees, so I sent our esteemed Mr. Mora that question on BSky.
I'll make sure to add the info to this thread if I get a response.
The President, the VP, and an unelected Richest man in the world as the Prime Minister of America are Russian assets.
I will never forgive my fellow "Americans" for this.