Tag: donald trump

Ukraine’s Zelensky Admits War More Likely To End Sooner With Trump In The White House

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told reporters that he firmly believes the war with Russia will “end sooner” with president Trump back in office than it would if the Democrats had won the election.

The BBC reports that the Ukrainian leader told Ukrainian media outlet Suspilne “It is certain that the war will end sooner with the policies of the team that will now lead the White House.”

“This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” Zelensky further noted, adding that Ukraine “must do everything so that this war ends next year, ends through diplomatic means.”

Zelensky also stated during the interview that he had a “constructive exchange” with Trump during their phone conversation last week, noting that US law prohibits him from meeting with Trump until after his inauguration in January.

It was widely reported last week that Elon Musk was also present on Trump’s call with Zelensky, which lasted around 25 minutes, according to the sources who were briefed on its details.

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Like Biden, don’t expect Trump to pay much attention to Africa

As commentators assess the implications of Donald Trump’s election victory for the United States and the world, various publications have asked what Trump’s return will mean for their continent. In one well-informed analysis, the BBC’s Wedaeli Chibelushi highlights “trade, aid, and security” as key sectors. We can also ask what might change in terms of Washington’s political relationships with various African countries, and how such changes would affect the overall balance of U.S. primacy versus restraint.

An initial caveat is necessary – of all the world’s regions, Trump and his team will likely not be thinking much about Africa. When Professor Stephen Walt recently assessed “The 10 Foreign-Policy Implications of the 2024 U.S. Election,” for example, he did not mention Africa – and that’s because the Middle East, Ukraine, NATO, and China, among other issues, will likely consume much more of Trump’s attention than the African continent will.

If Trump ignores Africa, that would be in keeping with a bipartisan neglect of the continent from the time of Barack Obama through the present. Obama and Joe Biden each held a “U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit” (in 2014 and 2022, respectively), but across the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, Africa was approached mostly as a theater for counterterrorism, trade, and global influence, rather than as having intrinsic importance to Washington. Vice President Kamala Harris would likely have replicated the largely performative, status quo-friendly approach of Biden. Although Harris had a deep bench of Africa hands on her campaign, that depth more reflects the long line of aspirants who line up for foreign policy jobs in Democratic administrations, more than a now-dashed promise of transformation. Biden and Harris will leave office with little to show for their Africa policy beyond the summit and a slate of high-profile but low-substance trips, including Biden’s upcoming visit to Angola.

As Trump takes office, there will be something of an opportunity for diplomatic outreach and “reset” with Africa. So far, Trump’s picks for top foreign policy postings do not include anyone with a pronounced interest in African affairs and his victory has elicited more mixed reactions in Africa than one might expect. Despite his infamous “shithole countries” comment and his numerous racist and Islamophobic remarks, many ordinary Africans admire Trump’s entrepreneurial career, socially conservative platform, and outspokenness. Various African leaders were quick to congratulate the comeback candidate. Trump is, however, likely unaware of and relatively indifferent to whatever opportunity exists for engagement, and so it will probably slip by.

If “personnel is policy,” Trump’s first term did not bring any shocking or unusual appointments for civilian posts related to Africa, and his second term may not either; the true ideologues and hawks are likely to gravitate towards Iran policy, for example. During his first term, Trump appointed veteran diplomat Tibor Nagy as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, think tanker J. Peter Pham as Special Envoy for the Sahel, and another veteran diplomat, Donald Booth, as Special Envoy for Sudan. The situation in the Sahel and Sudan was worse when Trump’s term ended than when it began: a massacre in Sudan in June 2019 brought no consequences for its perpetrators, and Mali witnessed a coup in 2020. Yet those outcomes cannot be laid solely at the feet of the Trump administration. Tellingly, the situation in the Sahel and Sudan in 2024 is also worse than it was when Biden took office, so neither administration earns high marks here.

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Trump’s Foreign Policy Agenda Must Start By Undoing Four Years Of Global Insolvency

As the second Trump administration prepares to take office, it faces a full slate of foreign policy crises and a limited capacity for dealing with them. For decades, U.S. foreign policy has been led by people who saw a world without tradeoffs. There was no need for prioritization, either among foreign policy goals or between domestic and foreign projects. America could have more guns and more butter, forever.

Even at the height of the unipolar moment, tradeoffs still existed, but now they are back with a vengeance. The Trump administration will have to deal with insolvency in its foreign policy, both in terms of material resources, as well as its attention. Strategy is about prioritization among various objectives and applying resources commensurately. The D.C. foreign policy establishment is bad at strategy.

In his 1943 book, US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, Walter Lippmann famously worried about the alignment of American ends and means. Solvency, Lippmann wrote, was achieved when “our power [was] adequate to our commitments.” Still, it was not merely balance that policy should seek, but “a comfortable surplus of power in reserve.”

Can anyone with a straight face argue that U.S. foreign policy is, at present, solvent? Much less that we have a comfortable surplus of power in reserve?

The questions answer themselves.

Since President Trump left office in 2021, the People’s Republic of China has eroded the U.S. military advantage each year. In Europe, U.S. policymakers deploy tumid prose to argue that unless Ukraine is capable of defeating Russia (it is not), Americans cannot be safe. For its part, Israel has consumed roughly $18 billion in U.S. military aid for its wars in Gaza and Lebanon. All this while Washington spends more than a trillion dollars per year on defense programs.

There is no slack capacity to draw from. The national debt is $35 trillion and growing. The Congress is racking up budget deficits in excess of $1.5 trillion each year. Unsurprisingly, forward-looking budget projections are absolutely dismal. With Medicare, Social Security, and interest on the debt largely off the table to close the gap, defense hawks have no stash of money into which they can tap.

Unfortunately, the insolvency of America’s allies and partners is, if anything, even larger. Taiwan, which faces arguably the worst threat environment on earth, spends a piddling 2.5 percent of its own GDP on defense, piling its insolvency on top of ours. U.S. policymakers have made matters worse by not prioritizing the provision of weapons to the island. Taipei is still waiting for roughly $20 billion of U.S. weapons it has purchased but not yet received, but the Biden administration made clear in June that its priority for weapons transfers was Ukraine, not Taiwan. As Biden put it, other recipients are “going to have to wait. Everything we have is going to go to Ukraine until their needs are met.”

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Trump Proved Rigged Elections Are Winnable. Now It’s Time To Un-Rig Them

In the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his voters faced media interference, suspicious ballot dumps, politicized censorship of information, low-security election laws, polling place issues, and legally dubious Democrat get-out-the-vote operations.

In the 2024 election, Donald Trump and his voters faced media interference, suspicious ballot dumps, politicized censorship of information, low-security election laws, polling place issues, and legally dubious Democrat get-out-the-vote operations. On top of those, he faced two assassination attempts and a political lawfare campaign designed to bankrupt and jail him. The fact that Trump succeeded in making this election “too big to rig” doesn’t make those problems any less threatening to self-governance.

After 2020, concerned Americans started paying more attention to the security of our elections. Often on their own time, they perused voter rolls, filed public records requests, and researched election law. After 2020, they uncovered shady schemes like “Zuckbucks” — an effort to dump billions in “grants” into left-leaning jurisdictions in swing states to juice Democrat turnout — that had influenced that election.

By 2024, they had accumulated a body of research on proven or potential flaws in our elections. States that automatically register residents to vote, but don’t require proof of citizenship to do so, created opportunities for noncitizens to end up on voter rolls, sometimes unknowingly so. Overly broad laws governing overseas voters allowed people to vote in certain swing states despite never setting foot there. States with mass mail voting regimes ended up sending ballots to the wrong places, with no way to make sure they didn’t wind up in the hands of bad actors. Laws allowing undated ballots to be turned in after Election Day welcomed illegitimate behavior. States that don’t require ID to vote — or that treat noncitizen licenses as qualifying IDs — invited fraud and decreased confidence in elections. Election officials’ decision to keep dead, moved, or otherwise unqualified “voters” on the voter rolls practically invited abuse.

Despite the attention drawn to them, all of those problems still exist.

Other problems were reincarnated as new ones. As quickly as sunlight dried up the Zuckbucks pipeline, the federal government replaced it with something worse: a taxpayer-funded scheme to target likely Democrat votes. While Elon Musk transformed Twitter from the chief censorship engine to a free speech platform, actors like Facebook, YouTube, and Google doubled down. While alternative media outlets drew attention to election red flags, the legacy press labeled anyone who questioned the process “election deniers.”

Donald Trump’s win proved the Democrat election rigging machine isn’t impregnable. But it also showed just how much “rigging” you have to overcome to win. And in several Senate races around the country, other Republicans didn’t.

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The Impact of the US Election For Ukraine- Can Trump do a Deal With Putin on Ukraine?

Trump’s plans and approach towards Russia’s war on Ukraine is already evident in his campaign speeches and psoturing. Trump has often boasted about his capacity to negotiate deals, positioning himself as a peacemaker who will bring an end to the war.

His approach would center on swift negotiations and most certainly involving controversial proposals for territorial compromises. However, it is war and unpredictability is a constant. So the specifics would depend heavily on the ongoing state of the conflict and geopolitical dynamics in early 2025.

1. Focus on Negotiation and Ceasefire

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he could negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia within a short timeframe (sometimes stating 24 hours). His approach would center on bringing both parties to the negotiating table for immediate ceasefire talks. He’s already had phone calls with Zelensky and Putin who is currently pushing the strategic edge with Trump by calling for a Trump-led negotiation kick-off. In a way, Putin and Trump are already on same page but on same negotiation terms? That will have to be seen but it’s unlikely Trump will want to entirely go Putin’s way and be seen as bending over for Putin.

Trump’s main pitch would likely involve pressuring both sides into halting hostilities temporarily, setting the stage for further discussions on territorial disputes. Trump will argue that continued conflict is a lose-lose situation especially for Ukraine- a claim he already repeated, insisting that Ukraine is losing and Russia is winning and has hinted ending US aid, and he isn’t known to back down from his position even when proven wrong. Leveraging economic interests with Russia as an appeal to ending the war is also key for him.

2. Compromise in the name of “Peace”

Trump has shown a willingness to consider compromises that will involve territorial concessions, at least implicitly. This position is contentious for many reasons and would be met with strong resistance both in Ukraine and among Western allies.

Trump might propose a referendum-based approach, especially so as key members of his team support this.

Elon has repeatedly pushed similar ideas, suggesting that disputed areas such as Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk hold internationally supervised referendums to determine their status. Like it or not, Trump will take it as great if Elon says it’s good. This idea could be framed as a democratic solution, though it would be heavily criticized given Russia’s strong political/military control and occupation over those areas, especially so as millions of Ukrainians has fled those areas leaving their homes and livelihood behind.

Another possible angle could involve Trump advocating for a federated model in Ukraine, where regions could have greater autonomy- hasn’t worked in the past due Russia’s persistent interference. This might include proposals to give the Russian-occupied areas special status or increased autonomy while remaining under nominal Ukrainian sovereignty. It would be an attempt to satisfy both parties without a full land concession. But with Russian interference, it will be Moldova all over again. Some will argue that’s better if it stops the war now. Ukraine however much prefers a solution that contains Russia now and in the future.

3. Pressure on Ukraine to Compromise

Trump has often criticized the extensive military aid provided to Ukraine, arguing it prolongs the conflict. Trump’s Republican Party blocked aid to Ukraine for more than nine months from October 2023 to April 2024, forcing Kyiv to deplete its wartime budget, while the EU scrambled indecisively, mostly due to limited wartime capacity, leading to the loss of some of Ukraine’s most capable fighters and territorial gains for Russia. In a second term, Trump will leverage US support to push Ukraine towards a compromise, by conditioning future aid on entering negotiations with Russia and possibly demanding territorial concessions.

This stance would clearly be met with strong opposition from Ukrainian leadership, who have maintained a firm line on not ceding any territory.

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Incoming Trump Border Czar Pledges to Deport ‘Nine Out of Ten’ Migrants

Yesterday, incoming Trump Border Czar Tom Homan reiterated previous pledges he had made that, as a member of the new president’s administration, he would oversee the deportation of “nine out of ten” of the millions of migrants the Biden regime allowed to pour over the border

Here is Tom Homan in November of last year, when a renewed Trump presidency was but a twinkle in the eye of MAGA (emphasis added):

I promised President Trump when he announced that if he goes back, I go back. And I’m going to run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen because these millions of people being released in this country, nine out of 10 will get an order of removal based on immigration court data. 

A judge orders them to be removed. We’re going to find them and we’re gonna remove them. If there’s no consequence, we can’t fix the border. We’re going to have a consequence in the Trump administration.

Now, what often happens in these cases is that appointees playing to the base get into Washington, get a good talking to by whomever actually runs whatever their given policy purview is, and magically their rhetoric moderates.

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Who’s the Leaker in the Trump Transition Team?

Who is the leaker in the Trump Transition team?

Vanity Fair on Thursday evening, citing a “transition source,” dropped a hit piece on Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary.

Citing two sources, Vanity Fair reported that Trump’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, was briefed about a sexual misconduct allegation involving Pete Hegseth.

“Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017,” Vanity Fair reported on Thursday.

Vanity Fair then citied a “transition source” when describing a Thursday meeting Pete Hegseth had with Trump’s lawyers and Susie Wiles to discuss the alleged sexual misconduct.

“According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.” Vanity Fair reported.

Pete Hegseth’s attorney Timothy Parlatore told Vanity Fair: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

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Trump Should Immediately Stop Federal Agencies From Hiding Documents By Needlessly Marking Them Classified

Early in his third presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to establish a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to “declassify and publish all documents on Deep State spying, censorship, and abuses of power.” The phrase “Truth and Reconciliation” recalls bodies established to investigate abuses by toppled Communist regimes such as East Germany’s, or the former apartheid government of South Africa. The framing suggests that Trump views the entire past decade, from “Russiagate” to the “lawfare” cases entangling himself and his advisers, as the fruits of an illegitimate regime that threw the rule of law out the window.

This interpretation of recent history, surely viewed as partisan by Trump’s opponents, will be tested by the facts, once they become better known and documented. But the president-elect’s suggestion that the workings of the U.S. government must be more transparent is long overdue.

According to Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, who introduced a bipartisan “Classification Reform for Transparency Act” last July, the U.S. government spends $18 billion every year classifying information. “Over-classification,” they argue, “undermines national security by limiting information sharing between federal agencies,” as in the notorious intelligence failures before 9/11. American taxpayers, we might add, fork over billions every year in order to help their government hide information from them.

Like so many now-encrusted practices in Washington, the classification monster is of dubious constitutional provenance, born of the metastasizing of the U.S. security apparatus during the Cold War. Just as foreign military interventions denied taxpayers a genuine “peace dividend” after the fall of the USSR in 1991, the intelligence agencies created to oppose the Soviet threat, instead of disbanding after its disappearance, spread their tentacles ever wider.

In 2016, we were told that no fewer than “17 U.S. intelligence agencies” agreed on alleged Russian election interference — apparently an undercount, as the website of the Director of National Intelligence now lists 18. This averages out to a neat $1 billion spent annually by each of these 18 agencies to classify about three million documents apiece. Are there really that many secrets worth preserving from the public?

None of this is to reckon with the enormous back catalog of older documents still classified by the U.S. government, some nearly a century old. The CIA claims to have released the last classified World War I documents, but millions of World War II files remain closed. While researching my book Stalin’s War, I discovered that many of the files on Lend-Lease aid to the USSR were declassified only in the 1970s. While I was not surprised, owing to long experience with Russian archival restrictions, that Soviet files concerning the scale of American military and material aid are tightly guarded — undermining as they do cherished myths about the “Great Patriotic War” (the Russian government recently shut down its only Lend-Lease museum) — I could not fathom why information about U.S. generosity had been classified in Washington.

Frustrating as Russia’s recent nationalist turn and the shutting off of archival access has been for Western historians, most of us expect secrecy from Moscow. But we have a right to expect better from our own government. True, U.S. citizens have the right, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) passed in 1967, to request access to classified government files — but the government can reject these requests under nine “exemption categories,” covering everything from reasonable privacy concerns (bank and medical data) and trade secrets to open-ended concerns about “national security” and nebulous “legal privileges.”

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History of clashes with ‘deep state’ signals Gaetz would bring Trump reform to DOJ

In Congress, Donald Trump’s Attorney General pick Matt Gaetz was at the forefront in challenging the Justice Department and was a staunch defender of the former president, hinting at the role the firebrand could play in remaking the troubled federal agency if he is confirmed. 

Gaetz rose to prominence defending then-President Trump and bashing the Justice Department during the Russia collusion investigation into the Trump campaign, frequently appearing on television and using his role on key committees to challenge the agency, which pushed the long-debunked “Russian conspiracy” narrative. 

After Trump’s first term ended, the four-term congressman challenged the department on its handling of Hunter Biden probes and the investigation into the Trump assassination attempts. 

President-elect Trump undoubtedly nominated Gaetz for these reasons, seeing him as an important defender and loyal ally to head an agency he felt was undermining him at every turn in his first term. 

But, Gaetz will still likely face a tough confirmation battle and his nomination has drawn skepticism from Senate Republicans who will be vital to confirming him to the role. 

When spurious allegations that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia were being pushed by Capitol Hill Democrats, Donald Trump’s first attorney general, former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, angered the president when he recused himself and allowed the department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the allegations. 

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CNN Freaks Out Over Trump Making RFK Jr. HHS Chief

CNN freaked out over President-elect Donald Trump making RFK Jr. Secretary of Health and Human Services, with Jake Tapper accusing Kennedy of engaging in “quackery”.

Announcing Kennedy would head up the post on Truth Social, Trump asserted that it was a victory for Americans who have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies.”

Trump added that Kennedy “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

This caused heads to explode at CNN, with Tapper raging that RFK was “somebody who has been pushing quackery, who has been pushing lies, who has been pushing conspiracy theories.”

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