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President Donald Trump defended the US taking part in peace talks that excluded Ukraine by rewriting history.
Speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago after a round of golf on Tuesday, Trump argued that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “should never have started” the war, adding, “You could have made a deal.”
Say what you want about the many billions in US military aid for Ukraine or which countries the US should be allied with, there’s no realm of reality, except the one pushed by Russia, in which Zelensky started the war that began in February 2022 when Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
Now, after nearly three years of a brutal war of attrition, Zelensky could not get a seat at table for the talks hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and featuring representatives from Putin’s regime, which has been in power for the past 25 years, spanning six different US presidencies.
Zelensky tried to pierce Trump’s alternative facts from a press conference of his own Wednesday morning in Kyiv.
“Unfortunately, President Trump – I have great respect for him as a leader of a nation that we have great respect for, the American people who always support us – unfortunately lives in this disinformation space,” Zelensky said.
Later on his social media platform, Trump aped Kremlin talking points, called Zelensky a “dictator” and baselessly alleged that half of the aid okayed by Congress to help Ukraine has gone missing.
In reality, more than half the US aid to Ukraine has been in the form of weapons systems and ammunition from US stockpiles. The money went from US taxpayers to US-based defense contractors to buy the weapons and equipment for America’s military inventory, and some of that stockpile was then sent to Ukraine.
This may feel like a pivotal moment as Trump leans toward Russia and away from Ukraine.
But it comes in the context of Trump’s remarkable political comeback despite being investigated for his 2016 campaign’s interactions with Russians and impeached for his pressure on Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden before the 2020 election that Trump tried to overturn and still won’t admit he lost.
In other words, there is history. It’s worth looking taking a quick look back at the last decade.
What was happening 10 years ago?
In 2015, as he was running for president, Trump was also pursuing the possibility of a real estate deal in Moscow, although the proposal was scrapped, CNN has reported.
While there was not enough evidence for the subsequent special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude there was collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russians, Russia actively tried to help Trump win, according to US intelligence assessments, which Trump now dismisses as the “Russia Hoax.”
When Trump publicly asked Russians to get Hillary Clinton campaign emails, they immediately started trying, according to indictments filed by the Department of Justice in 2018.
Trump’s campaign chairman for a short time during the 2016 campaign, Paul Manafort, had a history of doing work for pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, which was among the reasons he ultimately left Trump’s campaign.
What happened during Trump’s first term?
Too much to recount here. Suffice it to say that Russia cast a very long shadow over Trump’s time in office, beginning with the firing of his first national security adviser over lies he told about meeting with the Russian ambassador at the time, the recusal of his first attorney general, the appointment of former FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, the multiple trials of Trump associates, including Manafort, and much more.
Where does Ukraine come in?
As part of an effort to dig up dirt on Biden in 2019, Trump pressured Zelensky, then newly in office, to investigate Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid to stand up to Russia. That call led to a whistleblower report and Trump’s first impeachment, although he was acquitted of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in a Senate trial.
Zelensky, at least until Wednesday, has gone out of his way to praise Trump. The two met in New York in September.
But this all brings us to the very odd current dynamic: The foreign leader who Trump may blame for an impeachment is the same one who is getting billions of dollars in US military aid to fight off the foreign leader who US intelligence agencies believe tried to help get Trump elected in 2016. Follow?
What does Trump say about Putin and Ukraine?
Trump likes to brag that Putin took four years off from his designs on Ukraine when Trump was in office. It’s true that Putin’s Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, when President Barack Obama was in office, and tried to finish the job in 2022, when President Joe Biden was in charge.
Trump’s prediction during the 2016 campaign that Putin would not go further into Ukraine if Trump was in office came true.
Other predictions, like his boast during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last September that “I will get it settled before I even become president,” have not come true.
What did Trump say when Putin invaded Ukraine?
Trump had called Putin savvy and praised his strength even as Putin was amassing troops on the border of Ukraine. At the time, the Biden administration was trying to convince the world to believe US intelligence that Putin was serious about an invasion and Russia was looking for an excuse to justify one.
Trump called in to Fox News and argued, as he continues to argue today, that it was Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan that made Putin move on his desire to invade Ukraine. Trump does not mention that Biden’s Afghanistan plan was originally hatched during Trump’s own administration.
For a refresher of what was happening almost exactly three years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine, read CNN’s report from that day. In it, Russia’s spokesman argued the invasion was part of an effort to “liberate” Ukraine,” which needed to be “cleansed of Nazis.” Zelensky, for the record, is Jewish.
What are other Republicans saying now?
In the years since the invasion, many Republicans have largely gravitated to Trump’s way of thinking. Some defenders of Ukraine, like then-Sen. Marco Rubio, have evolved. Rubio is now Trump’s Secretary of State and took part in those Saudi Arabia peace talks. Other Republicans, like Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, still hold an anti-Russia viewpoint, but the party is clearly reorienting itself around Trump’s way of thinking.
Will Putin stand down under Trump?
Wendy Sherman was a State Department official in the Biden administration who was involved in talks with Russia before the 2022 invasion. In an interview Wednesday, Sherman told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour it’s clear Putin still has designs on claiming Ukraine as part an effort to reconstitute the Russian empire.
“He believes it ideologically. He believes it historically, and I don’t think he will settle for anything other than a chance to ultimately take all of (Ukraine),” she said, criticizing Trump for heaping concessions on Putin and normalizing relations between the US and Russia in favor of a peace deal.
