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Shameful day for America where the President and VP two on one berate a visiting leader (guest even) who is fighting for his countries freedom against a totalit
by duxup 2y ago
Shameful day for America where the President and VP two on one berate a visiting leader (guest even) who is fighting for his countries freedom against a totalitarian regime.
- kappi 2y ago[flagged]
- belter 2y agoReaction from Dmitry Medvedev a few minutes ago: "The insolent pig got a smack down in the White House" Maybe the current administration can work more efficiently if Russia and the US have a single spokesman?
- wave-function 2y agoPay no attention to him, he's being belligerent in an attempt to atone for his sins of promoting liberal policies 12-16 year ago. His rants really don't represent anyone or matter in any way.
- sph 2y agoHis rants represent the view of the Kremlin, as well as those of the Oval Office in Washington.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- linuxftw 2y ago[flagged]
- myko 2y agoThis is really sad
- nelsonfigueroa 2y agoThis is a very shallow take
- duxup 2y agoPeople fighting despots for their people's freedom should be welcomed and supported, not made to beg.
- linuxftw 2y agoIf this was actually believed, he would not have to leave his continent for support.
- HackerThemAll 2y agoYou don't understand how the world works.
- duxup 2y agoI don't know what that is supposed to mean, as far as I know he hasn't been asked to beg or been berated like this by any other nation but the United States.
- afavour 2y agoYour suggestion is that European leaders don’t believe him, which would be counter to every public statement they’ve made. He’s getting support from European nations. The US is capable of more support, hence asking for it. This isn’t complicated, I have to suspect you know all of this and are being disingenuous anyway, and I cannot fathom why.
- sunshowers 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_fallacy
- belter 2y ago"European countries have provided €132 billion in aid (military, financial and humanitarian) as of December 2024, and the United States has provided €114 billion." "List of military aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukraine_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukrain...
- oezi 2y agoAnd most of that money is flowing back. If the US government buys American weapons and ships them to Ukraine, then the money circulates in the US and leads arms manufacturers to employ people. With Russia at war with Ukraine, Europeans have turned to US fossil imports and funneling money back to the US. The arms in Ukraine then hurt the Russian military and degrade it. So it is effectively spend to further American goals even then. The mental gymnastics performed to make it seem like a loss of US taxpayer money is really insane.
- stevenwoo 2y agoPeace for Our Time, the sequel, by Trump and Vance.
- racktash 2y ago"Peace for Our Time"/Chamberlain was at least motivated by a genuine (albeit naive) desire for peace. This is much worse insofar as motivations are concerned.
- stevenwoo 2y agoThe quality of this version lies in how much more profit Trump and his backers can get from their POV and in not using tax money for weapons that can instead go to tax breaks for his pals, they are only interested in peace in the USA, the rest of the world be damned.
- thomassmith65 2y agoIt would be closer if there had been newsreel footage of Neville Chamberlain barking "Say Uncle! Say Uncle!' at Edvard Beneš.
- kelseydh 2y agoPublic humiliation of an ally in distress.
- afavour 2y agoNot an ally any more. The US is now aligned with Russia against Europe. My brain struggles to truly accept that fact but my eyes see what are in front of them.
- formerly_proven 2y agoMatches reports that Reuters and AP were excluded from the meeting, while a TASS reporter was “accidentally” present in the Oval Office.
- lostlogin 2y agoIt’s baffling. That’s switch suits some people, but how many, hundreds? The connection with Europe would appear to benefit millions of Americans.
- afavour 2y agoSadly it's the nature of (EDIT: the US system of) democracy, you don't get to pick and choose which parts of a candidate's agenda get enacted. Voted for Trump because of inflation, found the country in an alliance with Putin. Very broadly I think the US has done a poor job explaining just how beneficial America's position in the world is to America itself. You see it reflected in the USAID stuff too. Soft power pays dividends in ways that aren't immediately apparent so when it's gone people just don't care all that much. It'll be interesting to see where this all lands 20 or so years from now and how the US public feels about it then.
- School-Cotton 2y agoThis isn’t in the nature of democracy, it’s in the nature of winner-take-all FPTP presidential systems specifically.
- dtquad 2y ago[flagged]
- IntelMiner 2y ago[flagged]
- fsckboy 2y ago[flagged]
- mrtesthah 2y agoWhat am I supposed to learn from this exchange? You imply that you understand how to negotiate, so maybe you can enlighten the rest of us as to how Trump and Vance are achieving a victory on behalf of US interests.
- sundaeofshock 2y agofsckboy, when answering mrtesthah’s question please remember that the best interests of Donald Trump do not align with the best interests of the United States.
- duxup 2y agoI don't know what you think this is about "deal making" this whole show is unique as far as white house visits go, this is no some usual process.... Attempted humiliation and bullying does not make for a good deals as far as I've seen.
- belter 2y agoAny attempt to pretend Trump knows the concept of Chess, fails the moment you remember he nominated Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y agoAlas the person who got the AG slot after Gaetz dropped is just as willing to be a corrupt official personally loyal to Trump. Just without Gaetz' baggage.
- somethoughts 2y agoI don't know if it's 6D chess but it probably was more of a chaos monkey/bury the lead strategy that doesn't take much brain power (i.e. flood the zone). My hot take is Matt Gaetz, the Greenland purchase and the Canada as the 51st state were all distraction techniques to get the other nominees through.
- logicchains 2y ago>fighting for his countries freedom against a totalitarian regime He sent hundreds of thousands of his own people into a meat grinder to fight for the privilege of being ruled by his corrupt government (recognised as one of the most corrupt governments in Europe) instead of a different corrupt government, with his thugs literally going door-to-door dragging unwilling youths off to die. The average Ukrainian wasn't any better off under Ukrainian government than under Russian government, and they'd certainly be much better off alive than dead.
- gnfargbl 2y agoIn the short term, certainly. In the longer term? I'm pretty glad not to have been born into an occupied British puppet state. If not for a man with the obstinacy of Zelenskyy, I might have been. It was always ironic that Trump kept a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office but after today, it's almost obscene.
- logicchains 2y agoIn the longer term there's realistically no chance of Ukraine regaining the land it lost. In both this scenario and that scenario Russia annexes part of Eastern Ukraine, but in that scenario there aren't hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians.
- gnfargbl 2y agoAnd what exactly do you think Putin will do after he successfully exits this particular engagement? Past performance is, in fact, often quite a reliable guarantee of future results.
- johngladtj 2y agoLick his wounds for years, and die. This Ukraine debacle wasn't the clean win he wanted.
- 2y ago
- Trasmatta 2y agoEvery day I feel more ashamed of my country. Especially because nothing that's happened since Trump returned to office is a surprise (including this): apparently the median US voter wanted this. Horrible. I feel so badly for the Ukrainian people.
- cpwright 2y agoI think that the median US voter likely did not want this. With two candidates and a variety of issues, you are very likely going to have to compromise on something. You can support Trump's immigration policy, DOGE efforts, and more; without thinking that the US should help Putin restore the Soviet Union. Personally, I could not bring myself to vote for either of the presidential candidates. I only voted on the down ballot races.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoPeople are wildly out of touch with where the far right is and how big of a movement it is. Sure, maybe not 51% of the country wanted this. But I would be shocked if it's less than 38%. That number is FAR too large.
- CobaltFire 2y agoThen you own this as much as someone who voted for it. Abstention just buys you ownership of whatever happens, regardless of who wins.
- Judgmentality 2y ago> Personally, I could not bring myself to vote for either of the presidential candidates. You really looked at both candidates and decided both were equally bad?
- cpwright 2y agoYes. They are bad in very different ways. Trump has no moral compass; and the only thing that matters is his ego. Harris had domestic policy that I almost universally disagree with. I did vote in the primary, but it didn't matter at that point because the only other option was Haley. I would have been enthusiastic about any other Republican primary candidate.
- howmayiannoyyou 2y agoAbsolutely an unimaginative & incorrect take and here's why: 1. The entire affair provides cover for continued operations against Russia without great power escalation. Hopefully Putin doubles down and loses even more military assets. If you don't understand this point take a day or two to think it through. 2. Ukraine cannot win (its objectives) this war without Western troops at some point & that's been clear since the start. US objectives have been met, with Russia unable to mount a conventional threat to Europe; with its hardware now discredited against Western weapons - much to the dismay of the Sino-Russia-Iranian axis; and with European underspending on defense & overreliance on Russian energy now reversing. 3. Get used to the new USA. We are going to very publicly assert our power and by doing so hopefully deter war in Asia. Anyone who doesn't understand 1-3 needs to meditate on this and grow a pair.
- stirlo 2y agoGoing to deter war in Asia by simply telling China, go for it, take Taiwan and the whole 9 dash line? That’s not deterring war, it’s appeasement. Ask the great European powers (and eventually the US) how that worked against Hitler…
- TylerE 2y agoHorrible take. We’ve just told every supposed ally of ours that they can’t trust us. Trump just single handedly set back International relations by over a hundred years. All that post WW2 good will and trust just went poof. You think Germany or France is going to support us after this?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- khazhoux 2y agoIt's what America wanted. I've decided to stop caring. It's all a joke now. We'll try again in 44 months.
- kflgkans 2y agoYou're mistaken. This is no joke.
- JohnFen 2y agoIt's not what America wanted. It's what the felon-in-chief wants, but he doesn't represent most Americans.
- jszymborski 2y agoThat becomes harder to believe in light of the most recent electoral result where he won the popular vote. I do want to believe that he doesn't represent most Americans, however.
- JohnFen 2y agoIt seems clear that non-MAGA people who voted for Trump did so because they believed his BS promises to make the economy better and fast, and secondarily because of the immigration issue. Most of them didn't think Trump would actually do all of the horrible things he and others said he was going to do. And even then, he only barely won the election. It was the slimmest margin since the 1800s.
- dboreham 2y agoNot at all clear. Are voters really that stupid? Seems more likely there are more evil people around us than we expected, and they knowingly voted for evil.
- halostatue 2y agoHe won 49% of the votes cast. He did not get a majority, but a plurality. The turnout was ~64%, so he got ~30% of the possible votes. His main opponent got about ~28% of the possible votes. He doesn't have the mandate he thinks he does, but he's a megalomaniac led by his nose ring by the psycopathic megalomaniacs behind Project 2025, which ~90% (more?) of Americans said that they didn't like when they saw it.
- blastonico 2y agoExactly, Trump should have given him more $100 billion.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoI didn't know Vance was that low-class. Has he always been like that or is it something repulsive he's picking up from Trump? He needs serious exposure to mature, cultured, well-mannered gentlemen and to get some pointers from honest, respectable US presidents and vice-presidents like he's getting none of now. Or he'll never reagin his former integrity, if he actually had enough to make a difference, it makes me wonder.
- UltraSane 2y agoIt makes more sense when you understand he is an actor reading the script he is given. He cannot act independently and what he says has no relation to his actual opinions, if he even has any of his own. This is true for most of the GOP at this point. Exceptions include Romney.
- Ar-Curunir 2y agoLet’s not strip agency from these people. They didn’t magically end up in these positions, they actively worked for this shit.
- UltraSane 2y agoThey have used their agency to give up their agency to the GOP hivemind.
- anigbrowl 2y agoI too keep thinking of Romney as an exception but his voting record doesn't seem to bear that out. Mitch McConnell has voted against more of Trump's nominees than Romney.
- LightBug1 2y agoEverything Trump touches ... dies. RIP Elon RIP Vance etc
- tdeck 2y ago
- redmajor12 2y agoWhen did Zelensky's presidential term expired again?
- mcv 2y agoWhen there is peace. Just as with Churchill. And most European leaders during WW2. You can't hold free elections when you're not free.
- sublimefire 2y agoThey cannot have normal elections anyway, a bunch of people in occupied territories, not to mention soldiers in active duty who cannot leave their posts to vote. Whilst Putin is ruling since 2020 (except Medvedev term).
- missedthecue 2y agoCome on. US held elections in 1864 France held elections in 1871 during a large war where parts of the country were under Prussian occupation Korea held elections in 1952 Vietnam held elections in 1956 Iraq held elections in 2005 with large parts of the country under foreign backed insurgent occupation Georgia has held elections in 2008, 2012, and 2020. Ukraine itself held elections in 2014 and 2019. Either the Donbas and Crimea are Ukrainian or they're not.
- y0ssar1an 2y agoThey literally can't have an election until the war ends: * millions of Ukrainians in the occupied territories * 1000km frontline that is extremely thin in places. should they pull troops off the line to vote, or run ballot boxes to the trenches? * their Constitution forbids it * the Russians will attack polling places, possibly killing hundreds Britian didn't have an election for 10 years because of WWII, so it's not like it's unprecedented for a democracy to put elections on hold during an existential crisis.
- captainkrtek 2y agoAbsolutely heartbreaking. How many of the people arguing have seen any footage of the atrocities committed by Russia. It is sobering to see women and children shelled in their homes and hospitals. 20 Days in Mariupol is free to watch on Youtube (Won the Academy Award for Best Documentary last year): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAyykRvPBo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAyykRvPBo
- arcbyte 2y agoOverall, Zelensky miscalculated when he challenged the VP like that. Nothing good was gonna come from that in that setting. But I dont know why Vance even jumped in like that. It both undercut Trump and forced Zelensky to voice his disagreement. But then they both attacked him for some perceived lack of gratitude which just spiraled out of control.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoIt looked planned to me, with canned talking points 'I clutch my pearls at you talking to us like that in OUR OVAL OFFICE!'.
- guerrilla 2y agoOf course it was. Look at Trump's facial expression. He was calmly waiting to attack. Everyone had become desensitized to previous antics, so they had to escalate, just like on any good TV show. People need to understand that who they're dealing with a trolls, not idiots or geniuses. The two negotiating strategies are to 1. provoke 2. create uncertainty. This seems to be extremely efficient at getting them attention, emotionally exhausting opposition, keeping counterparts off-balance and has the benefit of being able to make them a lot of money, considering that they're in control of market instability.
- jonathanstrange 2y agoZelensky did nothing wrong.
- terio 2y agoIt was a setup