Trump’s Ukrainian Outrage

By Kyle Smith

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

 

‘Genius”? Really? President Trump’s assessment of the pretext Vladimir Putin conjured up for his invasion of Ukraine was such a woeful thing to say about a Russian despot that it reminded me of the New York Times’ infamous description of Joseph Stalin upon his death: “Those who survived the purges hailed [him] as a supreme genius.” Fear of being murdered does have a way of concentrating one’s attention.

 

But one doesn’t expect Trump to stoop to the level of the New York Times when it comes to praising Russian strongmen. The former president has said many things that ought to have disqualified him from being considered for any major office, much less the presidency, but even so, his comments on radio’s The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show yesterday were outrageous. I wish I could say they were also shocking.

 

When asked “What went wrong here” to allow the invasion, Trump defaulted to his Captain-Queeg-on-the-stand mode and insisted that the main thing that was wrong about the Ukrainian situation was that he is the rightful president: “Well, what went wrong was a rigged election and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there and a man that has no concept of what he’s doing.”

Viewing the coming immiseration of the Ukrainian people as yet another television event, Trump added, “I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful.”

 

Sarcasm? Maybe. But the context clarifies that Trump respects Putin in realpolitik terms for coming up with what he believes to be a smart pretext for invading, and perhaps he also finds the invasion entertaining because it embarrasses the Biden administration. Trump is simply incapable of thinking in any terms more complicated than enjoying the consternation of his political enemies. He certainly didn’t sound sarcastic when he twice called Putin “savvy,” and suggested that a wise American president would find some similar excuse for sending tanks to our southern border. This isn’t the first time Trump has suggested that Putin is a potential model for how a U.S. president should behave, and yesterday he called the Russian leader “a tough cookie” with “great charm” who “loves his country.”

 

Reasonable people can differ on what America should do about the Ukrainian situation, but “Let them get stomped on by the Russians because LOL it’ll create problems for Biden” is not a thought that should cross the mind of anyone who made it past middle school. It’s been said many times, but it can’t be said enough: Trump is a child. You wouldn’t entrust him with your car keys. He’d come back with a crazy story about how he accidentally sold your F-150 for “the most amazing” price, but he’ll be sure to sign over the check to you . . . at some unspecified later date.

 

Trump was nothing like a “Russian asset” or “Putin’s puppet,” and if he was, it’s awfully inconvenient that Putin seized Crimea just before Trump became president and moved on the Donbas just after Trump ceased to be president. Nevertheless, Trump has no principle or sense of allegiance that isn’t flexible when it comes to naked self-interest, hence his praise of Putin at the 2018 Helsinki summit for backing up Trump’s complaints about the FBI. Trump takes the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend thinking to breathtaking extremes.

 

Biden may be inept and confused and may well have invited the invasion by projecting weakness and accidentally greenlighting a “minor incursion,” but no Americans should allow their mistrust of him to turn into cheerleading for Putin. Even the socialist senator from Vermont is striking a line well to the right of how Trump sounded yesterday. Bernie Sanders labeled Putin’s action an “indefensible violation of international law” and called for severe sanctions and preparations to aid potential refugees who may flee Ukraine (before trailing off into a silly call to transition away from fossil fuels, exactly the opposite of a smart move in a world that will still be running on them for decades). The strongest denunciation that Trump could come up with after fielding several questions about Ukraine was, “It’s very sad,” and it’s not even clear he was referring to the invasion rather than to the weaknesses of Biden.

 

As is so often the case with Trump, his praise of Putin was a totally unforced error: from the sidelines, with no difficult decisions to make or tradeoffs to weigh, Trump can spend every day of this crisis merrily slamming whatever is going wrong as the inevitable product of poor presidential leadership while projecting an image of steely fortitude. Instead, he invited yet another round of commentary suggesting that he is Putin’s stooge. Even Trump’s most devoted backers must get tired of cringing.