Just After "Russian Asset" Trump said the U.S. Would Stop Sharing Intelligence with Kyiv

 

Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

Russian forces struck a hotel in Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with a missile on March 5, killing four people and injuring at least 32, including a child, Governor Serhii Lysak reported.

The missile struck the five-story hotel around 10 p.m. local time, killing a 53-year-old man. Lysak later reported that two men and a woman were killed in the attack, and a 43-year-old man died in the hospital the following morning.

At least 32 other people suffered injuries, including a child. Fourteen of the victims are in serious condition, Lysak said. Most of the wounded have been hospitalized. "Just before the strike, volunteers from a humanitarian organization checked into the hotel – citizens of Ukraine, the U.S., and the U.K.," President Volodymyr Zelensky said. "They survived because they managed to escape their rooms." Zelensky did not specify whether the volunteers suffered any injuries.

The missile strike also damaged 14 apartment buildings, a post office, almost two dozen cars, a cultural center, and 12 shops, the governor said. Emergency crews are currently working on-scene to clear the rubble from the attack site. Ukraine's State Emergency Service said that there may be additional victims under the rubble.

Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, remains a frequent target of Russian missile attacks. With a population of about 660,000, it is the second-largest city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, located roughly 70 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the nearest front line.

-The Kyiv Independent

Who are the key players behind Trump?

 

So, this here is the easiest-to-understand breakdown of the Elon Musk / JD Vance / Peter Thiel / Curtis Yarvin / tekdestruktors agenda currently ambushing the USA. If you're still in the dark as to what Musk and DOGE are actually up to, I urge you to read this. It's by Shane Almgren, who has authored a couple of books on adjacent topics ('The Trumpland Diaries' and 'Conspiracy Christianity') and has been investigating the above-mentioned people for a while. Yes, it's a bit long, but not really. He's made it chatty. (This is an excerpt from a longer piece.) Please read and share:

Finally, we've got a third group—the one that's responsible for all the chaos Elon and DOGE are causing. Their agenda is actually far more extreme than either Project 2025 or the [Christian Reconstructionists/Dominionists]. And the scary thing is, they're already implementing their freakish plan at warp speed while most of the country is busy bickering about all the quaint Project 2025 garbage (and Trump's usual unending fire hose of idiotic nonsense).

There are a few key players we're gonna have to cover some backstory for, namely Elon Musk, JD Vance, a guy you might've heard of by the name of Peter Thiel, and a guy you almost certainly haven't, Curtis Yarvin. These guys are all connected in a mildly horrifying way and we're about to unpack it all...

Once upon a time in the 90's, Elon Musk founded a small company called X.com (No, not Twitter—a different X.com. Dude just has an inexplicable fixation with the letter X). X was a fledgling digital banking service that allowed people to transact with vendors and each other without cash, checks, or plastic.

At the same time Musk was building out X, another young entrepreneur, a German immigrant named Peter Thiel, was building a very similar money-transfer service right across town called Confinity. Rather than compete with each other, Musk and Thiel decided to merge their two companies in 1999, with Musk named CEO of the new company. Shortly after the merger, Musk was fired as CEO by the board, who replaced him with Thiel. After Thiel took over, the company's name was changed to "PayPal.” You may have heard of it.

PayPal attracted some of the most promising young talent in Silicon Valley, and its early members wielded so much power and influence in the tech space that they became collectively known as the "PayPal Mafia."

Besides Musk and Thiel, the PayPal Mafia included:

• Steven Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim (co-founders of YouTube)

• Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman (co-founders of Yelp)

• Max Levchin (current CEO of Affirm)

• Roelof Botha (partner at Sequoia Capital)

• David Sacks (Founder of Geni.com and Yammer, Trump’s new “AI/Crypto Czar”)

• Reed Hoffman (founder of Linkedin, early investor in Facebook, currently on the board at Microsoft)

• Jack Selby (co-founder of Clarium Capital with Peter Thiel)

• Yishan Wong (CEO of Reddit, founder of Terraformation Inc)

• Premal Shah (founder of Kiva, on the board at Change.org)

Plus, a dozen others. The PayPal Mafia churned out a Who's Who in the Big Tech space, with nearly everyone involved becoming billionaires many times over. Today, it's one of the wealthiest and most influential collection of individuals, not just in America, but in the entire world.

In 2002, eBay acquired Paypal for $1.5 billion. Although no longer officially with PayPal after being ousted, Elon still held around 10% of the company shares and netted roughly $160 million in the sale. So that's the Peter Thiel-Elon Musk connection–they co-founded PayPal together.

Now let's see how JD Vance is tied into this crew.

In 2011, Peter Thiel gave a talk at Yale where JD Vance was attending law school, changing the course of Vance's life, as JD recounts it. Vance called Thiel "possibly the smartest person" he ever met, and decided to pivot from a career in law to one in venture capital. In 2015, JD joined the Thiel-founded Mithril Capital, with Thiel as his personal mentor.

In 2016, Vance published "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," thrusting his name into the national spotlight for the first time. It was at this same time that Vance, unencumbered by any political aspirations or pretense and therefore free to speak his actual mind, sent his Yale roommate an email regarding America's leading presidential candidate, Donald Trump, that read: "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler. How's that for discouraging?")

Vance left Thiel's firm in 2017 and joined a D.C.-based investment firm. Then he launched his own VC firm, Narya Capital, in 2019 with financial backing from Thiel, billionaire VC capitalist Mark Andreessen, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

For reasons we'll get to in just a minute, around the time the pandemic was starting to wind down, Peter Thiel decided it was finally time for him to own a U.S. Senator and start pulling some long-awaited political strings. He figured that since he'd funded Vance's VC firm and essentially owned Vance already, he'd just migrate that ownership from the private sector to the public.

Because JD Vance had been an open critic of Donald Trump during Trump's entire first term, Thiel invited Vance down to Mar A Lago to smooth things over in hopes of getting an endorsement from Orange Jesus. Thiel informed Vance of his plans to make him a Senator, so Vance scrapped all his previous principles, decided power was “more gooder” than having any convictions, kissed Trump's ring, and earned the endorsement.

Thiel, for his part, poured an ungodly amount of his own money into Vance's Senate campaign—about $15 million—marking the largest donation to a single Senate candidate in American history. In addition to his personal $15 mil, Thiel also recruited 10 major donors for Vance, including a couple old tech buddies from the PayPal Mafia who chipped in a million each.

So, if you ever found yourself wondering how the author of "Hillbilly Elegy," a lawyer-turned-venture capitalist with no political experience or aspirations and a vocal critic of Donald Trump came out of nowhere and managed to snag Trump's endorsement and win a Senate seat in his first foray into politics, there's your explanation: Peter Thiel orchestrated, arranged, and funded the entire thing. A tech billionaire bought himself a Senator.

Now, the next question is Why? This is where it starts to get scary. It's time to meet the final character in our story, Curtis Yarvin.

Yarvin is a software developer and tech entrepreneur who started the Unqualified Reservations blog in 2003 under the pen name Mencius Moldbug. He's perhaps best known for founding the anti-egalitarian, anti-democratic philosophical movement known as the Dark Enlightenment or neo-reactionary movement (NRx).

Like most people, Yarvin sees a ton of problems in society. But unlike most people, the problems he sees—and his solutions to those problems—are dystopian fringe at best, and democracy-ending suicide at worst.

In a nutshell, Yarvin's Dark Enlightenment political worldview is that the REAL power in the U.S. resides in an informal collaboration of universities and the mainstream media (that he calls "the Cathedral") which collude to sway public opinion. He admires the former Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping for his "pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism," believes America's commitment to equality and justice "erodes social order," and advocates for an American "monarch" to dissolve elite academic institutions and media outlets asap.

A regular speaker at various Libertarian and techno-fascist conferences, Yarvin's position is that democratic governments are inefficient and wasteful and should be replaced with sovereign corporations whose "shareholders" elect an executive with total power over the country/corporation. As Yarvin explains it, "Unencumbered by liberal-democratic procedures, the executive could rule like a CEO-Monarch."

And just in case it still isn't abundantly clear what Curtis Yarvin thinks is the solution to what ails America, here it is in his most straightforward phrasing: "If Americans want to change their government, they're going to have to get over their dictator-phobia."

Yes, Curtis Yarvin is an unapologetic proponent of dictatorships since "there's no real difference between a dictator and a CEO, and corporations under the rule of a CEO appear to work just fine." As he puts it, "Nations like the United States are outdated software systems" that need to be "broken up into smaller entities called 'patchworks' which would be controlled by tech corporations."

As he put it in an interview with the NY Times on Jan 18, "Democracy is done."

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Shane, this Yarvin dude is clearly off his rocker. Nobody in their right mind would take this "Corporate Monarchy" nonsense seriously. Why are you wasting everyone's time explaining in detail the techno-fascist-manifesto ramblings of some internet pop philosopher who calls himself 'Mencius Moldbug?' Dude sounds like he's living in some Matrix-meets-Hunger-Games dystopian fantasy world. Surely NOBODY takes this dude's crazy ideas seriously!"

That's where you would be wrong. Perilously wrong. Two of Curtis Yarvin's biggest disciples and advocates for his technocratic ideas are... Peter Thiel and Vice President JD Vance, the MAGA heir apparent.

The three of them have been friends since at least 2009 after Yarvin's writings and ideologies became super popular within the PayPal Mafia circle. (If you’ve got an hour and a half to waste, here’s Vance on the Jack Murphy Live Podcast name-dropping Yarvin and spewing a few of his more sinister ideas.)

See, people forget that billionaires have political ideologies just like everyone else. And remember, most peoples' political ideologies are generally tailored to improve the life of the person holding them. Democracy sounds great if you're a peasant living under a king with no say in how things are run. But in what way would democracy improve your life if you're a multi-billionaire who can buy politicians? Once you're up that high on the food chain, democracy is no longer a step UP, it's a step DOWN.

So, all these filthy rich, filthy powerful tech bros have jumped on board with turning America into a corporation run by a CEO with authoritarian power. According to them, the masses don't need to be voting – the masses are idiots. (Or as Yarvin puts it, "The masses are asses.") The PayPal Mafia has no interest in becoming beholden to the whims of a bunch of blue-collar workers from Appalachia. If they're gonna be free to live their best lives, they're gonna need to unshackle themselves from the "masses who can't even figure life out enough to afford groceries."

Put bluntly, those who can write a check for a few $billion and not even notice it's gone are not interested in the opinions of those whining about the cost of 12 eggs. As Peter Thiel once wrote in a Cato essay, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Now, supposing they were going to attempt to pull this techno-coup off, what would that look like in practice? Thankfully, Yarvin has had the plan mapped out for years with a little strategy he's given the acronym RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. It would look exactly like what we're all looking at.

Elon's "haphazard, chaotic coup" of federal agencies is anything but. This has been the plan all along by these Yarvin acolytes: gut the federal workforce—either by mass firings or incentivizing them to resign—crippling the entire government in the process, at which point Big Tech corporate solutions that just so happen to already be on hand can step in and take over the reins of running our government.

Since you could never get away with doing this as a blatant hostile takeover, you just frame the entire exercise as an "audit to weed out fraud and corruption," then watch the gatekeepers roll out the red carpets and cheer the whole takeover on!

I know it sounds like tin-foil-hat conspiracy but LOOK at what's happening in front of your eyes. Isn't it a little weird that JD Vance came out of nowhere to win a Senate seat? And weirder still that Peter Thiel managed to convince Trump to make this virtual nobody his running mate even though Vance was the most unpopular VP pick in polling history?

Wasn't it a bit strange that Donald Trump told a bunch of Evangelicals at a rally, "Vote for me this one time and I'll make sure you never have to vote again?" What the hell did that mean? Isn't it slightly too coincidental that Peter Thiel's original business partner Elon Musk is currently running roughshod through the American government doing EXACTLY what Curtis Yarvin said needs to happen?

This isn't conspiracy land at this point. These dudes told everyone what they wanted to do, and then they started doing it while we all watch dumbfounded. The Left is going, "Surely they can't be doing what it sure as hell looks like they're doing—taking over the government!" and the Right is just...cheering them on because it "makes the libtard snowflakes cry."

So, there's your explanation.

Elon Musk, JD Vance, and Peter Thiel are executing a long-planned agenda to take over the government. Donald Trump is just a dementia-addled old man along for the ride, ranting about windmills and magnets and taking over canals, and content to just sign large pieces of papers for the TV cameras all day. Hopefully, the chaos makes a little more sense now."

Here is the full piece on his Trumpland Diary fb page: https://www.facebook.com/TrumplandDiary/posts/pfbid02LgYiTeQmG4jCiQ96dSR8GMgMe7azbgHdmenrwCsjfo4EQdj9ymF9gcstRHYXVHfPl

via Steve Lafreniere

Trump's "Campaign Rally Stump Speech"

 

It wasn’t necessary to watch all of Trump’s speech last night to understand where we are as a country. The state of our union, as I noted Sunday night, is compromised. And that comes as no surprise to any of us. But two moments from last night are worth noting, as markers of where we are.

The Stupid: "I have created the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight," Trump said during his speech.

Only one problem. That’s not what the Justice Department has been telling judges in litigation involving the Musk-led effort to privatize government. They’ve been doing everything they can to claim Musk is not in charge of DOGE, including telling the judge that a woman named Amy Gleason, who was on vacation in Mexico when they made the representation to the court, is the Acting Administrator.

It didn’t take lawyers long to point that out. Trump was barely finished when Kel McClanahan filed a “Notice of New Evidence” in Lentini v. DOGE, one of three cases that have been consolidated to hear claims about DOGE’s legality in the District of Maryland.

McClanahan argued that Trump’s statement about Musk “conclusively demonstrates that expedited discovery is urgently needed to ascertain the nature of the Department of Government Efficiency and its relationship to the United States DOGE Service.”

The best outcome for Trump, following his epic foot in mouth, is that Judge Jia Cobb grants the motion to expedite which would make this the first case where pro-democracy lawyers would gain access to information about the inner workings of DOGE, likely a treasure trove that would further underscore the lawless manner in which Trump is acting.

The worst case is that someone gets held in contempt, either civil or criminal. That would open an entire can of worms about how the courts enforce their orders against a Trump administration that has at least suggested it might not comply with ones it doesn’t like. But that fight is, inevitably, coming, and judges don’t like it when parties lie to them, especially when it’s so explicit and when it’s the government doing it, here, rather uniquely, with the president’s involvement.

The Corrupt: After his speech, Trump shook hands with people in the room, including the four active Supreme Court Justices who were present in their long black robes. Their tradition of dress is meant to ensure that no one mistakes who they are. It separates them from the political fray, even as they attend. That message, however, was lost on Trump.

The moment was captured on CSPAN. Trump thanks the Justices. He doesn’t say what for, but of course, we all know. “Thank you very much, appreciate it,” he says to Elena Kagan, whose face is a mask in the moment. Then, he moves on to the Chief Justice. “Thank you again. Thank you again,” he says to John Roberts. Then he awkwardly slaps him on the shoulder and says, “Won’t forget it.” The moment has an almost classic mob boss feel to it in context. Roberts, followed by Kagan, peels off and leaves without comment and immediately.

This is the find out part, but unfortunately, it’s not the Chief Justice who feels the consequences of what he did. You may recall the reporting that Roberts came to conference with the other Justices with an uncompromising stance in the presidential immunity case, unwilling to deliver anything less than the win he gave to Trump, the win that permitted Trump to give the speech and shake hands last night. The rest of the country is now paying the price for that.

The Justices are supposed to protect the integrity and impartiality of the court from even the appearance of impropriety. Last night, and regardless of the truth of the matter, they permitted Donald Trump to insinuate that they are on his side, his captives.

Ironically, Justices Thomas and Alito have dropped away from attending the event over the years. Thomas has said, “It has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there.” Alito hasn’t attended since the 2010 SOTU when he was seen mouthing "Not true," on camera in response to President Obama’s criticism of the Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down campaign finance restrictions.

The Justices’ interaction with the current president last night certainly bore the view that the event is too political for the Court. The Chief Justice’s humiliation at Trump’s hands last night was reminiscent of the moment where Trump included General Milley, in full uniform, in the walk from the White House to St. John's Church for what turned out to be a political photo op. Milley subsequently apologized, saying "My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics."

Milley subsequently fell out of favor with Trump. Whether the Chief Justice, who has life tenure, will take similar steps to protect the integrity of the Court remains to be seen, but seems unlikely. Milley was widely hailed as a hero in the wake of his apology.

And there you have it. For the longest State of the Union address in history, it contained the least helpful content. It was more campaign rally stump speech and culture wars checklist than a vision for leadership. Trump did not address the issues the country faces in a substantive way. There was little of substance. Perhaps that’s the ultimate comment on the man and his time as president. There was little of substance here.

We’re in this together,

Joyce Vance

 

"I cannot recall an uglier scene in American diplomatic history"

 

“It was a sickening spectacle: the man who tried to upend democracy bullying the man who is fighting for democracy.”

– Maureen Dowd, “Trump is Rootin’ for Putin,” The New York Times, March 2, 2025.)

“Trump barked at Zelensky: 'You’ve got to be more thankful because…you don’t have the cards.  With us, you have the cards, but without us, you don’t have any cards.'  Pretty rich for a draft dodger to lecture a man whose name has become synonymous with wartime bravery.”

–Dowd, March 2, 2025.

In the summer of 1938, it was increasingly obvious to the international community that the German invasion of Czechoslovakia was being planned in Berlin.  The Czechs had an alliance with the Soviet Union, but that wasn’t expected to save them.  British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain knew that, if France decided to defend Czechoslovakia, he would have to join in.  Britain was in no position to wage a general European war, so Chamberlain boarded a plane for the first time in his life and flew to Munich to placate Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain’s concessions were insufficient for the Fuehrer, so he made a second trip only to find greater German demands.  Additional meetings were held, as Hitler and his cohorts launched violent tirades against the Czechs.  Hitler then held a public rally at which, according to historian William Shirer, Hitler was “shouting and shrieking in the worst state of excitement I’ve ever seen him in…with a fanatical fire in his eyes.”

I recalled these odious events while watching the video of the March 1 meeting in the Oval Office in which a vile President Donald Trump and an even more vile J.D. Vance abused and tormented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with their shouts and threats. 

There is no question that Trump is a dangerously disordered president who has already diminished the United States on the world stage and caused significant domestic damage.  There is no point in discussing Vance, the worst kind of toady and sycophant.

The mainstream media will not say it, but Trump is grossly deranged and represents a threat to the American way of life and to Americans themselves.  He is driven by a pathological hatred of anyone who has ever challenged him and veneration for those autocrats who control all around them. 

Meanwhile, the servile Washington Post under the active leadership of Jeff Bezos, was critical of Zelensky because he “took the bait and turned punchy.”  Bezos’s Post also praised Trump because he “sees himself as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.”

In holding a gun to Zelensky’s head, we are reminded of Trump’s exchanges with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and his multiple references to having a “bigger button,” the nuclear button.  In the summer of 2017, Trump’s first term, he threatened North Korea with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” 

Similar to the decision to remove Zelensky from the White House, Trump abruptly cancelled talks with Kim Jong-un.  “Based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement,” Trump wrote to Kim, any meeting would be “inappropriate at this time.”

Several weeks ago, Trump threatened the Gazans unless Hamas released American hostages.  Trump favors the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which supports the Israeli right-wing movement, and he is encouraging Israel to annex the West Bank.  These events would be dramatic as dystopian fiction, but this is America’s reality at the moment.  Indeed, it is a global reality.

Unlike Trump’s first term, when there were some adults or moderates in the room such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, White House chief of staff John Kelly, and others, there now are only toadies surrounding the most unethical and deranged president in the history of the United States. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who supported military and economic aid to Ukraine as a senator from Florida and once referred to Zelensky as a “modern-day Churchill in a T-shirt,” went on CNN to thank Trump for “standing up for America in a way that no President has ever had the courage to do before.” 

The following day, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz went on national television to demand an apology from Zelensky. The thought that Rubio and Waltz will be leading U.S. negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, an experienced and deft diplomat, is a part of this nauseating series of events.

In ten minutes in the Oval Office, Trump and Vance have managed to produce an embarrassing erosion of American credibility and decency.  They have opened the door wider to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign of terrorism against Ukraine and have given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even greater carte blanche in conducting his terror campaign on the West Bank and his occupation of southern Lebanon and southern Syria. 

China’s Xi Jinping may now believe the door is open to a military campaign against Taiwan that will not have to deal with U.S. involvement.  Trump’s outrageous purge of senior military leaders as well as China’s military drills off the coast of Australia and Vietnam, including live-fire drills in the Gulf of Tonkin, create additional worries about the direction of events in the Indo-Pacific.

Nearly 80 years ago, the United States initiated a magnanimous act, the Marshall Plan, to revive the economies and societies of Europe in the wake of the Second World War.  It is believed incorrectly that Winston Churchill called the Marshall Plan the “most unsordid act in history.”  Actually, Churchill was talking about the Lend-Lease Bill and President Franklin Roosevelt’s courageous decision to provide military aid to a beleaguered Britain.

Just as Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan were designed to assist Western democracies, U.S. and European support for Ukraine was similarly inspired to enable the weakest European nation to stand up to the tyranny of Vladimir Putin.  

In a matter of minutes in the Oval Office, Trump and Vance have eroded the U.S. leadership of the Western democracies that has existed since the end of the Second World War.  For now, the post-war Atlantic Alliance is dead.

Nearly 240 years ago, Elizabeth Powel asked Benjamin Franklin “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”  Franklin’s response was “A republic, if you can keep it.”  Well, the republic has been compromised in a few weeks, and now we must ask if we are going to be okay as a nation.  Trump’s decisions, his appointments, and yesterday’s conduct indicate that we are not okay at the moment.

In scenes reminiscent of “The Godfather,” Trump performed as a high-ranking mobster, a member of La Cosa Nostra, a consigliere of the family, who will crush anyone who challenges his version of U.S. interests.  I cannot recall an uglier scene in American diplomatic history, and most of the international community shares that view.

For the moment, Volodymyr Zelensky is the leader of the free world.  It will take serious and urgent opposition to stop Donald Trump from additional vile acts at home and abroad.  In setting up a scene to humiliate Zelensky and the Ukrainian nation, Trump has embarrassed himself and the entire nation.  In doing so, Trump has undermined 80 years of an Atlantic Alliance that protected democracy in the West and challenged autocracy and patrimony in the East.

 

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.

 

From this ChatGPT analysis, it becomes evident that we have witnessed a true masterclass in gaslighting, manipulation, and coercion on the part of Trump and his entourage

 

The Key Points:

1. Blaming the victim for their own situation

Trump explicitly tells Zelensky: “You have allowed yourself to be in a very bad position.” This is classic abuser rhetoric—blaming the victim for their suffering. The implication is that Ukraine itself is responsible for being occupied by Russia and for the deaths of its people.

2. Pressure and coercion into ‘gratitude’

Vance demands that Zelensky say “thank you.” This is an extremely toxic tactic—forcing the victim to express gratitude for the help they desperately need, only to later accuse them of ingratitude if they attempt to assert their rights.

3. Manipulating the concept of ‘peace’

Trump claims that Zelensky is “not ready for peace.” However, what he actually means is Ukraine’s capitulation. This is a classic manipulation technique—substituting the idea of a just peace with the notion of surrender.

4. Refusing to acknowledge the reality of war

Trump repeatedly insists that Zelensky has “no cards to play” and that “without us, you have nothing.” This is yet another abusive tactic—undermining the victim’s efforts by asserting that they are powerless without the mercy of their ‘savior.’

5. Devaluing the victims of war

“If you get a ceasefire, you must accept it so that bullets stop flying and your people stop dying,” Trump says. Yet, he ignores the fact that a ceasefire without guarantees is merely an opportunity for Russia to regroup and strike again.

6. Dominance tactics

Trump constantly interrupts Zelensky, cutting him off: “No, no, you’ve already said enough,” and “You’re not in a position to dictate to us.” This is deliberate psychological pressure designed to establish a hierarchy in which Zelensky is the subordinate.

7. Forcing capitulation under the guise of ‘diplomacy’

Vance asserts that “the path to peace lies through diplomacy.” This is a classic strategy where the aggressor is given the opportunity to continue their aggression unchallenged.

8. Projection and distortion of reality

Trump declares: “You are playing with the lives of millions of people.” Yet, in reality, it is he who is doing exactly that—shifting responsibility onto Zelensky.

9. Creating the illusion that Ukraine ‘owes’ the US

Yes, the US is assisting Ukraine, but presenting this aid as “you must obey, or you will receive nothing” is not a partnership—it is financial and military coercion.

10. Undermining Ukraine’s resistance

Trump states that “if it weren’t for our weapons, this war would have ended in two weeks.” This is an attempt to erase Ukraine’s achievements and portray its efforts as entirely dependent on US support.

Conclusion

Trump and his team employed the full spectrum of abusive tactics: gaslighting, victim-blaming, coercion into gratitude, and manipulation of the concepts of peace and diplomacy. This was not a negotiation—it was an attempt to force Zelensky into accepting terms beneficial to the US but potentially fatal for Ukraine.

"It was always Russia"

 

On Tuesday, Trump gives his first State of the Union address for his second term in office. He will assume the podium in front of a joint session of Congress with no credibility whatsoever. People who are being honest—that includes Republicans in the House and the Senate—understand how horribly he undermined the world order last week. 

He abandoned longtime allies in the process, not only Ukraine but NATO allies who now face an unpredictable future. Trump will offer his comments Tuesday after confirming the view of those who believed him to be Putin’s toady.

Trump’s speech should be one about making good on promises, like the one to bring down prices on day one of his administration. But he cannot do that. Instead, we will have tariffs this week. Tariffs, just a reminder, are simply taxes—taxes imposed on the American public. 

Trump has promised 25% tariffs on our allies, Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% on China (unless he backs out again at the last minute, as he did when he previously threatened tariffs). Folks who claim to have voted for Trump because they wanted a better economy under Trump failed to read the room and Project 2025. As a result, we will all suffer.

Trump’s first State of the Union address should be about peace in Ukraine. Remember how he promised he would get that done before he even took office while he was on the campaign trail? Trump’s idea of peace, however, turns out to have been forcing Kyiv to take responsibility for Russia’s invasion, give up valuable resource rights, and accept permanent occupation.

That didn’t go well, and you can watch it on video because Trump and Vance thought it was a good idea to bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into the Oval Office to try and overpower him into submission, which didn’t work out for them as planned. The humiliation was theirs. Zelensky emerged as the hero and the champion for people everywhere who love peace and value freedom.

When Donald Trump takes the stage to deliver his address Tuesday night, the truth will be this: The state of our Union is…compromised. Trump’s sycophancy towards Putin knows no bounds. On Friday, when a reporter asked about why Russia should be trusted to honor a ceasefire after all their incursions and violations, Trump came to Putin’s defense and put himself squarely within the Russian dictator’s embrace. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” he responded. “He went through a phony witch hunt.” Hillary Clinton was right. It was always Russia. It still is.

What about the unlikely possibility that the Republican Party will wake up at long last? We will get a sense of that Tuesday from the crowd’s response to Trump. There is no reason, yet, to hold out much if any hope.

Republicans, it seems clear, are more worried about their social lives after they leave Congress and staying in the herd than they are about the actual state of our union.

Even Lisa Murkowski was unable to summon more than being “sick to her stomach.” Seriously, she’s a Senator, one of the few people with actual power to act in this crisis. Do better.

We need action from members of Congress. They are there because, presumably, they wanted to serve their country. They took an oath to uphold the Constitution. If this was a functioning Congress, there would be a prompt move in the House to impeach and in the Senate to convict both the president and the vice president for engaging in high crimes and misdemeanors.

Of course, that is extraordinarily unlikely to happen with this crowd, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep up a constant demand that they do the right thing. Democrats in Congress, in turn, need to refuse to cooperate with a leader who has lost his legitimacy and makes a mockery of the notion of governing.

It is against that extraordinary backdrop that this week takes shape. It is sure to bring yet another cacophony from Trump. Again, we will have the task of separating what is important from the noise. Trump loves the Sturm und Drang, and clearly understands its value, again attempting to overcome us with so much that we cannot focus on any of it. We fight back with knowledge, information, and civil discourse with our fellow Americans…

-Joyce Vance

 

"History will remember this day—when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for"

 

…Donald Trump ambushed Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in an attack that seemed designed to give the White House an excuse for siding with Russia in its war on Ukraine. Vice President J.D. Vance joined Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office—his attendance at such an event was unusual—in front of reporters. Those reporters included one from Russian state media, but no one from the Associated Press or Reuters, who were not granted access.

In front of the cameras, Trump and Vance engaged in what Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo called a “mob hit,” spouting Russian propaganda and trying to bully Zelensky into accepting a ceasefire and signing over rights to Ukrainian rare-earth minerals without guarantees of security. Vance, especially, seemed determined to provoke a fight in front of the cameras, accusing Zelensky, who has been lavish in his thanks to the U.S. and lawmakers including Trump, of being ungrateful.

When that didn’t land, Vance said it was “disrespectful” of Zelensky to “try to litigate this in front of the American media,” when it was the White House that set up the event in front of reporters.

Zelensky maintained his composure and did not rise to the bait, but he did not accept their pro-Russian version of the war. He insisted that it was in fact Russia that invaded Ukraine and is still bombing and killing on a daily basis. His refusal to sit silent and submit meekly to their attack seemed to infuriate them.

Trump appeared to become unhinged when Zelensky suggested that the U.S. would in the future feel problems, apparently alluding to the new U.S. relationship with Russia. “You don’t know that. You don’t know that” Trump erupted. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.”

Zelensky answered that he was just answering the questions Vance was showering on him. “You are in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel,” Trump said. “We’re going to feel very good.” Zelensky answered: “You will feel influenced.” Trump disagreed. “We are going to feel very good and very strong.” “I am telling you,” Zelensky said. “You will feel influenced.”

Trump appeared to lose control at that point, ranting at Zelensky that Ukraine was losing and that he must accept a ceasefire, but also complaining about former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama and echoing Putin’s talking points.

When he could get a word in, Zelensky reiterated that he would not accept a ceasefire without guarantees of security and pointed out that Putin had broken a ceasefire agreement in the past.

Later, when a reporter picked up on that question and asked what would happen if Russia broke a ceasefire agreement, Trump became enraged. Among other things, he said: “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt….” 

Trump referred to what he calls the “Russia, Russia, Russia hoax” that Russia had worked to elect him in 2016. That effort, though, was not a hoax: the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 released an exhaustive report detailing that effort.

One of the things Russian operatives believed Trump’s team had agreed to, the report said, was Russia’s annexation of the parts of eastern Ukraine it is now trying to grab through military occupation.

Then Trump continued to rant at the reporter, rehashing his version of the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop at some length, tying in former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) in a larger stew that brought up Trump’s history with both Russia and Ukraine and their roles in his quest to hold power.

Clinton ran against Trump in 2016, when Russia worked to elect him, and Zelensky came across Trump’s radar screen when, in July 2019, Trump tried to force Zelensky to say he was opening an investigation into Hunter Biden in order to smear Biden’s father Joe Biden before the 2020 election. Only after such an announcement, Trump said, would he deliver to Ukraine the money Congress had appropriated to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s 2014 invasion.

Zelensky did not make the announcement. A whistleblower reported Trump’s phone call, leading to a congressional investigation that in turn led to Trump’s first impeachment. Schiff led the House’s impeachment team.

After unloading on the reporter, Trump abruptly ended today’s meeting, saying it was “going to be great television.” Shortly afterward, he asked Zelensky and his team to leave the White House.

This afternoon, former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) posted: “Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend.

 But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day—when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”

—Heather Cox Richardson