How is it possible that Donald Trump has harshly criticized everyone from Twilight actress Kristen Stewart to a Gold Star mother, but he still hasn’t—as far as anyone can determine—even mildly rebuked murderous despot Vladimir Putin?
Fox News host Sean Hannity is such a shameless sycophant he has to check into a Motel 6 whenever Trump gets a colonoscopy, but even he couldn’t get the big ocher disgrace to trash Russia’s bumbling Hitler. Instead, as you’d fully expect from someone who adores authoritarians and despises democracy, Trump reserved all his criticism for NATO. And it’s not like Hannity didn’t give him an opening. This wasn’t even a slow-pitch softball—they were playing T-ball, and Hannity was basically swinging the bat for him.
The Trump-Putin axis is real, folks, and if Trump tries to run for president again, we need to brand Putin as his running mate. That’s if Trump doesn’t pick him on his own, of course.
I honestly wouldn’t put it past him at this point.
You can listen to the rant in the second tweet below. Please note that, stunningly, Trump’s rambling phone audio is initially accompanied by graphic imagery of dead Ukranians—ostensibly in misplaced anticipation that Trump would speak to Hannity’s “evil” prompt, rather than … do what he did instead.
Transcript!
HANNITY: “I asked you the last time you were on whether you think this is evil in our time. Do you think this is evil in our time?”
TRUMP: “I think in 100 years people are going to look back and they’re going to say, ‘How did we stand back and NATO stand back?’ which in many ways I’ve called a paper tiger. Don’t forget, I rebuilt NATO because when I became president, the first thing I noticed when I went there to the first meeting was that most of the countries were not paying or were paying far less than they were supposed to.
“There were only eight out of 28 countries that were paid in full. The United States was not only one of them, we were making up the deficits to protect Europe. We were paying possibly 80% of NATO to protect them, and then they take advantage of us yet on trade. Because on trade, they’re every bit as bad as China. They treated us very badly on trade. We changed a lot of that around but they were very tough on trade. I asked Angela Merkel, ‘How many Chevrolets are you selling this month in Munich or Berlin?’ and she looked at me, ‘Well, probably none.’ I said, ‘You’re exactly right, none.’ And yet we had the Mercedes Benz, and the Volkswagens, and all of them. We had all of the German companies. And the same thing with farmers, our farmers sell virtually nothing to Europe, you take a look at what we sell and yet we take their product. They treated us very badly on trade, and we defended them, and we really, if you look at the real numbers, I bet it’s close to 80% and I said, ‘You have to pay. And if you don’t pay, we’re not going to defend you.’”
Hmm, how about answering the question, Skippy? FFS, every time Trump opens his mouth, you get a rapid-fire series of $100,000 Pyramid clues for “Things a Russian Agent Would Say.”
Of course, Trump’s blather about “rebuilding” NATO is pretty rich considering he undermined it at every possible opportunity. Trying to hector other countries into spending more of their GDP on their militaries (and contrary to what Trump seems to think, NATO countries have no actual dues) didn’t “save” a 73-year-old alliance that was already ramping up defense expenditures before Trump ever took office.
Oh, and not for nothing, Trump planned to withdraw the U.S. from NATO had he won reelection—which, to be perfectly clear, he didn’t. If Trump had succeeded in vaporizing NATO, it would have been the biggest gift Putin ever received, and it would have come from the same guy who is now mysteriously mute when it comes to the Russian tyrant’s war crimes.
Now, if you’re wondering why all this seems familiar, it’s because Hannity tried to get Trump to condemn Putin a month ago—and Trump refused then, too.
From a March 10 Newsweek story:
"I think I know you a little bit better than most people in the media," said Hannity. "And I think you also recognize [Putin is] evil, do you not?"
Trump did not respond directly to the question as to whether or not Putin is evil and launched into a rambling defense of his administration.
"Well, I was referring to the fact that he said this is an independent nation, talking about Ukraine, and I said that this was before there was any attack," Trump said, referring to Putin's recognition of breakaway regions of Ukraine that have declared independence.
The only conclusion a reasonable person can draw from these two interviews is that Trump doesn’t think Putin is evil. So if you’d like the stout, brave, righteously defiant Ukraine to be turned overnight into a kleptocratic Chuck E. Cheese, by all means vote for The Former Guy in 2024.
In Wednesday’s interview, Trump also boasted to Hannity about how well he knew Putin, even as the network showed even more shocking images of Putin’s war crimes.
“I knew Putin very well. Almost as well as I know you, Sean,” Trump told his close confidante, Fox News host Sean Hannity, as the network aired graphic images of dead bodies and the damage left by Russian troops in Ukraine.
“I will tell you, we talked about it, we talked about it a lot, he did want Ukraine, but I said, ‘You’re not going into Ukraine,’” Trump continued. “He would never, ever have gone into Ukraine.”
He wouldn’t have gone into Ukraine under Trump, even though he badly wanted to take it? Then why did Putin move heaven and Earth to get Trump reelected—four years after famously fucking with our election in order to install this buffoon in the first place?
But Trump wasn’t done. In Wednesday’s Hannity interview, Trump also revealed that he’d asked former Attorney General Bill Barr to stick his neck waaaay out in order to buttress Trump’s horrifying campaign to end American democracy.
Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that Barr did not want to investigate his baseless voter fraud claims because he was worried about being impeached even though Barr has repeatedly said the Justice Department did not pursue the claims because there was no evidence of any widespread fraud that could have affected the election outcome.
"Look, we also had a chance, but Bill Barr, the attorney general, didn't want to be impeached," Trump said. "How do you not get impeached? You sit back and relax and wait out for your term to end. That's what he did. And it was a sad thing and a sad day for our country."
Trump also lashed out at Barr for writing what he called a "crummy book" that was "so false." Barr in his book rejected Trump's debunked fraud claims and blamed him for the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, arguing that Trump was not fit for office.
So there you are. In summation, Donald Trump ♥s Vladimir Putin, he claims he saved NATO even though he openly planned to destroy it, and he wanted his own attorney general to ruin his career over a barmy lie.
So just another typical day in the fever swamps of our worst president’s moldering brain.
Sheesh, why wouldn’t Americans want him back in the White House?
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