“Winning the battle is worth losing the war”

(Trump, The Art of the Deal, pp. 179-181)

The Jews would have had peace if they’d just let themselves be taken to camps peacefully.

This is less funny because Russia literally did commit a holocaust in Ukraine.

or maybe extort them again.

Yea, that infuriated me.

He is outing gop for eating pets. He just needs to do it under the radar.

Remember every blame the throw around is admission on their part.

This is why I don’t watch the debate. I know it’ll just piss me off because he won’t say anything but crazy shit.

I was looking forward to what he was going to say about why he blocked the border bill. As expected, he chose to immediately talk about something else.

First time?

Let’s not forget: it appears that JD Vance may be the originator of that whole farce.

In which case, Trump touted it because either a) they honestly think it is good propaganda which will sway the campaign, or b) Trump is quite literally eating his own dog food, because there are too many lies to keep track of.

So weird…

Don’t worry, when Kamala catches and imprisons those illegals she will do transgender surgeries on them

Removed by mod

All we have to do is make him president elect! We don’t even have to inaugurate him!

he will allow Russia to win yes, in exchange for favours probably

Of course he does, he’s a bought man.

Yea, what a POS he is for pretty much admitting this. Not that we didn’t know this already.

Do we know of anyone who Trump might be worried about upsetting if he said he wanted Ukraine to win? Anyone at all?

That question is awkwardly worded, why are you putin it that way?

What is confusing to me is why would it matter to Putin if Trump lied here? The Russian mode of government is lying and deception after all.

Does he actually think that his voters want Ukraine to lose? Oh fuck, do his voters actually want Ukraine to lose?

I remember when Russia did go in, briefly Fox News was full of editorializing that Russia should get to have Ukraine. They at least tried to got full on pro-Russia when they thought the narrative might fly and Ukraine was going to just get conquered in a week or so. Clearly they were trying to set things up for blithe acceptance for what Russia had done and for the world to move on (until next time).

I think that between the prolonged conflict and the fact that their boomer audience actually may still be inclined to remember their cold war feelings that this won’t fly, that they backed off to less aggressively calling for complete Russian victory. But as seen here, there’s still a theme of making it clear that you’re ok with whatever outcome, leaning toward “but should we spend our money?” to undermine things rather than calling for a pro-russia outcome outright.

I wonder if a big part of the reason is just the whole phone call about Biden and subsequent impeachment, and how Zelenskyy wouldn’t play ball and the whole thing damaged Trump’s ego in a big way. So even if it’s politically advantageous in every way to say you want Ukraine to win, Trump is incapable of doing so.

Putin’s mum.

Do we know of anyone who Trump might be worried about upsetting if he said he wanted Ukraine to win?

Yes, I think there’s this one man, Trumps big idol, I think his name was Vladimir the war criminal Putin.

It was a presidential debate. It was fairly publicized.

It will not put off his voters. Some of them just don’t care about anything international. Others admire Putin as a strongman who isn’t afraid to kill his enemies and persecute minorities, a moral conservative, a self-professed Christian, an ally against democracy and a defender of the same bigotries they share.

It won’t. Because people are hung up about the eating pets thing. Which, insane as it is might have happened.

Idk why the actual issues are swept under the rug, and the controversial takes are the focus.

I don’t know why he can’t say Russia. It’s the obvious truth, his swallowers - sorry, his followers - would lap it up no matter what, and it’s no more or less insane than anything else he says.

It is a confusing statement. I understood it to be basically that once he is guaranteed to be president, Putin will know his man on the inside will be in charge, and Putin can end the war/negotiate for favorable terms with the US as enforcer.

Trump can’t end it before the election, because there’s no guarantee he’ll win.

Trump thinks that makes him a brilliant negotiator, instead of what he really is which is a stooge that can be played like a fiddle.

You should have learned by now that everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is pure bullshit.

I found it interesting that Trump claims if he wins the election, he’ll have the Russia / Ukraine conflict resolved BEFORE he even takes office.

He’s invoking the Iran Hostage Crisis, I think. Reagan famously cut a deal with the Ayatollah to release the American hostages on the day of his inauguration, despite Carter having nailed down a prisoner exchange months earlier.

If that’s the case, then it seems like he could choose to end the conflict at any time.

He’s full of shit. This isn’t a hostage negotiation where Biden did 95% of the work for him already. This is an intractable siege spanning a third of the country’s land area which has been spiraling into long range bombings of the respective civilian capitals. Trump isn’t going to be able to leverage a ceasefire that’s already on the table, because Zelensky isn’t asking for a ceasefire, he’s asking for permission to use higher capacity long range missiles to force Russian troops off the southern front.

I have no doubt that he can’t actually end it without basically giving in entirely to Russia.

The siren song Trump sings is that he could have prevented the '22 invasion by playing nice with Putin before tanks crossed the border. And 100%, if there had been a detente prior to the outbreak of open conflict, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Even at a concession of territory, this arguably would have been preferable to the holocaust committed across the territory to date.

But the reality is that he was just as happy to sell advanced weapons systems to Ukraine in 2018 as Biden has been in extending military aid today. If anything, Trump was more responsible for the Ukraine/Russia war going hot than Biden. And not even for particularly noble reasons (MIC $$$!!!)

Trump falsely promised Ukrainian leadership his full support in the event of a Russian retaliation, sold them a bunch of tacti-cool military surplus, and then turned around and tried to cut the same fucking deal with the Russians.

In this sense, it also invokes Reagan who was famous for sending Rumsfeld to cut arms deals with both Iran and Iraq shortly before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War.

Promising both countries your support, goading them into conflict, and then pulling back to let them duke it out is textbook John Bolton foreign policy. And guess who was whispering in Trump’s ear all through that first term in office?

It’s not a mystery how he plans to do it. He’ll demand Zelenskyy cede taken territory to Russia. If Zelenskyy doesn’t accept those terms, then the funding to Ukraine will stop.

That’s not true, he very clearly answered that he’s stronger than Superman and smarter than Batman.

Well, officially, Putin supports Harris, but who knows with that deranged man.