What did Donald Trump do today?

He admitted he's not in control of military decisions in his own administration, or worse.

Last week, the satellite communication service provided to the Ukrainian military by Starlink was abruptly throttled. The resulting breakdown in communications forced the Ukrainian military to scrap missions.

Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which is largely owned by its CEO, Elon Musk. When asked if he was responsible for the denial of service to Ukraine, Musk shifted the blame to the White House, saying that the particular service Ukraine was using was controlled by the United States government.

Asked about the matter today, however, Trump adamantly insisted he had nothing to do with it. "I wasn’t involved," Trump said. "I don’t know who did it, but I was not involved."

Trump's categorical denial that he knew what was happening with the Starlink shutdown leaves exactly three possibilities, all of them damning.

1. Trump is outright lying. This is the most straightforward explanation, and in some ways the least problematic, but it's also the least likely. Trump is now openly siding with the Putin regime, supporting it both financially and diplomatically in its invasion of Ukraine.
   
   
2. Trump has been cut out of the loop by his own subordinates. According to reporting, crippling the Starlink service to Ukraine was Musk's idea, although Musk also immediately denied responsibility. But Musk, who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 election and essentially forced himself on to Trump's campaign, has reveled in his control over Trump and Trump's agenda. Furious Trump staffers complained to reporters that Musk was acting as a "co-president" on Trump's return to the White House.
   
   Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also has a history of making decisions about Ukraine without informing Trump—in fact, he's done it more than once. Trump has been unwilling or unable to hold Hegseth accountable.
   
   
3. Trump was kept fully informed about Musk's plan, but couldn't understand it, or has already forgotten about it. Trump is notoriously lax about doing even basic preparation for the national security aspects of the presidency, and his fragile mental and cognitive health has been a concern since his first term. On Monday, for example, he stopped before boarding a helicopter to wave at crowds and salute troops that were not there.
   
   It is entirely possible that Trump signed off on these and any number of other plans without understanding or bothering to take note of what he was ordering.
   
   

Why does this matter?

• Presidents don't just get to shrug and say "it's not my fault" when something goes wrong. 

• Having a monstrously incompetent president in charge is bad; having it be unclear who is exercising the powers of the presidency is worse. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He actively joined the Putin regime in attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Trump has spent much of the last week making what looks like a final break with Ukraine in favor of the Putin regime in Russia, to whom he is personally and financially beholden. Today, news broke on at least two fronts that he is attempting to force the United States government to switch sides mid-war, even as he tried to sell Americans on the Russian version of the war.

To be clear, Trump does not single-handedly set American foreign policy: Russia does not go from being a hostile nation under diplomatic and economic sanctions set by law to an ally simply because Trump wants, or needs, Putin's support. That's even more true when it comes to American public sentiment, which is overwhelmingly in favor of Ukraine. 

But Trump does have the power to act as a saboteur inside the American intelligence and defense sector, and that is what he appears to have started doing this week, according to two reports that came out today. 

The first has to do with Starlink, a satellite communications company owned by Elon Musk, Trump's political backer and the single wealthiest person on the planet. Ukraine reported today that Musk's company had abruptly limited its capabilities in Ukraine, crippling its functionality. Musk promptly shifted the blame to the Trump administration in a social media post, pointing out that Starlink does not make military decisions and that the relevant services were "owned and controlled" by the United States government.

The second report concerns American military intelligence sharing with Ukraine, which is an essential part of Ukrainian air defense. The Putin regime has increasingly targeted civilian residential areas for missile attacks. That information sharing stopped abruptly this week. Ukrainian officials are convinced this is a deliberate signal to both sides that Trump has, in effect, decided to stop thwarting those Russian attacks and start enabling them. 

This was Trump's attempt to reframe the Putin regime's war on Ukraine today. 

Trump makes clear that he has turned on Ukraine and Zelenskyy and want to help Russia destroy them. The technical term for this conduct in wartime is perfidy, an act of betrayal involving deceit.

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— Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social) October 14, 2026 at 3:14 PM

Virtually none of this is true, but it's hard to know what falsehoods Trump believes and what he simply thinks he can get other people to believe. Trump's version does not take note of the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014, and in 2022 launched a massive and unprovoked attack intended to decapitate Ukraine's government and conquer the country outright. Targeting civilians and kidnapping children, which the Putin regime has done throughout the conflict, are war crimes.
 

Why does this matter?

• Betraying allies is a humiliating stain on the national conscience no matter how many times Trump does it.

• There is no reason for Trump to be acting like a bought and paid for Russian stooge, other than that he is one.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He explained that he thinks that things happen just because he says they do.

Trump was asked today about the mysterious "energy ceasefire" between Ukraine and Russia that he announced yesterday—which Ukraine hadn't been told about and Russia wasn't abiding by. His answer was uncharacteristically direct: he made it all up.

REPORTER: You said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, but both sides said they have not agreed to that.

TRUMP: Well they agreed, you know why? Because I said "you agree." That's why. They agreed, uh, because I said they agreed.

Of course, in reality, Trump declaring a ceasefire in a war between two other nations without even consulting them first doesn't make it happen. That's especially true when one of the countries involved is actively hostile towards the United States. Russia has continued its attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities without interruption, or even bothering to comment on Trump's futile declaration. 

Four days into this latest debacle, Trump appears to be realizing that reminding voters of his submission to the Putin regime isn't helping. At a campaign rally in Ohio, he interrupted his own speech to complain bitterly about the supposed "hoaxes" regarding his connections to the Putin regime and his attempt to force Ukraine to falsify evidence against Joe Biden:

Russia Russia Russia was a con job. All a con job, we caught 'em all. They're a bunch of crooked guys. They're bad people. That was a dangerous position to put our country in, too. It's lucky that I understood it and Putin understood it. No, It was a con job. It was all a big, Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine, remember that? The fake phone call, they said ohh, he said this, you said that, it turned out to be just the opposite, a very nice, normal call. Remember they reported a totally different call that was made? We had, essentially—the call was taped. And they said, oh, look it—we got problems. They said oh, let's impeach him anyway.

It's not clear what, if anything, Trump actually remembers of his first impeachment in 2019. It's true that he was impeached for trying to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into opening a spurious "investigation" into the business dealings of Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden. That much is proved by the White House's own cleaned-up memorandum of the call, which Trump then lied about and took extraordinary measures to try to hide from the public.

As for Trump's collusion with the Putin regime, to which he is personally and financially beholden, that's a matter of public record, and has been certified by a Republican-led Senate committee.

Why does this matter?

• The presidency is not a magical amulet that lets Donald Trump rewrite reality, and it's a problem that he thinks it is. 

• Saying "I didn't collude with Russia" or "I didn't try to force a military ally to sabotage an American election with misinformation" doesn't make it true anymore than "a ceasefire exists because I say so" does.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He lied about yet another ceasefire, with predictable results.

A day after falsely blaming Ukraine for skyrocketing fuel prices in the United States, Trump announced an "energy ceasefire," claiming on his boutique social media website that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop targeting each others' energy infrastructures.

Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was open to the idea but had made no such agreement and had not been told any details related to Trump's claim. As Zelenskyy put it, his supposed agreement was "news for me."

Russia's government did not respond to requests for comment. It did, however, attack Ukrainian energy facilities just a few hours after Trump announced the supposed ceasefire. 

Why does this matter?

• Reality doesn't change just because Donald Trump tweets something. 

• It's frighteningly likely that Trump actually thinks he's telling the truth, and that he remembers both sides "agreeing" to a deal he never discussed with either.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to blame Ukraine for problems he caused.

Yesterday, Trump announced that he'd brokered a deal with the Putin regime to purchase Russian diesel, even though the United States is the world's largest exporter of diesel, and Russia was so desperate to augment its own reserves that it had to secretly import hundreds of thousands of tons from South Korea.

Tomorrow, the first shipment of that diesel is expected to arrive in the Port of Wilmington on the tanker Minerva Zen. It left a Russian port 17 days ago, meaning that Trump's "deal" had been concluded in secret long before he informed the American public. (Trump has often colluded with the Putin regime to keep secrets from Americans about his actions as president; this is a rare case in which the Russian government didn't expose him itself.)

Today, however, Trump may have revealed his motives, by blaming the spike in diesel prices on Ukrainian attacks on Russian fuel infrastructure. He fumed about how Ukraine's president needed to be "replaced" for not surrendering to Russia, then blamed Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure for driving up the price of diesel.

 

“Zelenskyy could’ve stopped this war many times, and he chose not to … he better damn well stop” — Trump is no longer trying to conceal that he’s fully on Putin’s side

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 10, 2026 at 11:53 AM

It's true that Ukraine has attacked Russian oil facilities, which are legitimate military targets, unlike the apartment building that Russia destroyed today, killing 20 or more Ukrainian civilians. (Trump has not commented on this or any other Russian attack against civilians.) 

 

But the main reason diesel fuel is expensive is the chokehold on oil through the Persian Gulf, which is the direct result of Trump's attack on Iran. 

Trump, who is personally and politically beholden to the Putin regime, has found it all but impossible to even mildly criticize Vladimir Putin, much less take action against Russia. Today, Trump said that the Russia-Ukraine war started "for no reason" other than Ukrainian "incompetence." In reality, Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014, then launched a surprise decapitation attack against the remainder of the country and its government in 2022. Since then, it has killed approximately 200,000 Ukrainians (including more than 10,000 civilians), stolen Ukrainian children from parents in occupied territory, and committed numerous war crimes. 

The "deal" that Zelenskyy didn't make was a Russian-authored, Trump-endorsed surrender plan. It would have given Russia all currently-occupied Ukrainian territory and then some, ceded the country's mineral wealth to the United States, and forced Ukraine to supply Russia with electricity. What remained of Ukraine would be forbidden to enter into security arrangements with other countries, and would be at constant risk of reinvasion when Russia recovered from the unexpectedly fierce fight that Ukraine has put up so far.

In other words, by Trump's logic, Ukraine's government should have surrendered on the terms proposed by Russia so that Donald Trump would be more popular, and that this alone justifies Trump personally switching his allegiance openly to the Putin regime.

In what may be related news, Trump addressed a rally in the Republican-friendly state of Tennessee today, where he mocked his carefully screened supporters by saying "I could say the stupidest things and you'd clap."

Why does this matter?

• Ukrainians are allowed to fight for their very existence even if it's politically inconvenient for Donald Trump.   

• American foreign policy should reflect what Americans want, not what Vladimir Putin wants. 

• Trump betraying our allies is a disgrace to the United States, and worse when it's for corrupt purposes.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He gave Russia a green light to ignore sanctions against its oil industry.

In what even straight news reporting is calling a "stunning reversal" of US foreign policy, Trump announced today that he had reached a deal with Vladimir Putin to import up to 3 million tons of diesel from Russia.

Trump may have believed this would convince voters he was taking action to lower the record-high diesel prices that are driving up inflation. But even by his standards, this is a bizarre thing to do, for a number of reasons:

• The United States already has all the diesel it can use. There is no supply shortage in the United States, which produces more diesel than it consumes and exports the rest. In fact, it exports the same amount of diesel in 18 days that Trump says Russia will sell to the United States over an unspecified number of months.

• Prices won't go down because the supply isn't increasing. Diesel is a globally traded commodity, with highly efficient markets. That means that its price is a function of supply and demand. There's no indication that the Putin regime is increasing its production, or even that it could if it wanted to. That means that every barrel imported from Russia will simply free up another barrel to go elsewhere at the same market price.
  
  (This is generally taught in the first week of economics courses at business schools like the one Trump has a diploma from.)

• The amount is miniscule. Even if there were some economic advantage to Russian diesel, the amount in question is a tiny fraction of US daily demand: about 23 million barrels, or barely one week's supply. That may be why Trump chose to express it in tons rather than gallons, to make it seem like a larger quantity than it really is.

But Trump doing business with Russia has consequences that go well beyond the financial. By doing so, Trump is violating the spirit of a law he just signed, under pressure, sanctioning Russia and Putin personally and punishing countries that buy Russian oil and gas. Trump, who is personally and politically beholden to Putin, has been pursuing a totally different Russian foreign policy than the rest of the United States for his whole presidency.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded bluntly, calling Trump "dishonest" and "weak" and pointing out that Trump is now directly funding the enemy that the United States has committed to helping Ukraine defeat. 

At this very moment—while our team is speaking with the American team in Florida—the President of the United States is talking to the Kremlin leader, the leader behind this war and this aggression, and is reaching an agreement allowing Russia to export diesel. This means additional funds for the war, additional funds to fuel the suffering inflicted upon us. Undoubtedly, this only emboldens Putin and enables them to continue fighting. It is happening right now, just as we are discussing peace: America is allowing Russia to export diesel. This means millions, billions. Ultimately, it all goes towards the war against people, against Ukraine—against all of us. I believe our team is simply being used as a smokescreen. This is certainly dishonest; it is certainly not how partners should act. And, in my view, it is a weak decision—sadly, a weak decision made by strong partners.

This isn't even the first time this year that Trump has undermined US foreign policy by buying oil from a hostile nation. In March, in another desperate attempt to avoid the blame for skyrocketing gas prices, he canceled oil sanctions on Iran three weeks into the war.

Why does this matter?

• This would be pathetic and desperate even if it could actually lower diesel prices. 

• The only reason for a president to fund nations hostile to the United States is incompetence, or because he doesn't care that they're hostile to the United States.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He took North Korea's side against South Korea's government—and the United States'. 

Trump posted this to his private microblogging site today:

Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful. Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises! While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, "No thanks!" Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

To be clear, this framing—that North Korea is a well-behaved part of the international community and South Korea is making aggressive moves towards it—is exactly the stance taken by the North Korean government. Just a few days ago, the DPRK called the exercises "a rehearsal for an aggressive war." It also threatened to escalate its "deterrence" towards South Korea.

Possibly that threat is what spooked Trump, although it shouldn't have. North Korea routinely uses the US-South Korea exercises as an excuse for weapons tests, and as an opportunity to rally support for the ruling regime.

The "unthreatening and respectful" North Korea has been supplying Russia with weapons used against Ukraine, although for several obvious reasons that bothers Trump less than it does the rest of the United States government. But it's certainly true that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un enjoys a warm relationship with Trump, who—in his own words—"fell in love" with Kim during his first term.

It's also true that Trump demanded that South Korea get involved in his disastrous war with Iran, but—as with all of the United States' allies except Israel—only after the fact, and only once it was clear that he had gotten the United States stuck in a quagmire. Its government declined for the same reason that other allies did: there is no workable military solution to the problem Trump has created for the United States and the rest of the world short of a full-scale invasion, which would be a bloodbath even if it succeeded and would completely destroy any stability in the Middle East for years to come.

There's one other reason, besides his friendship with Kim Jong-un (who impressed Trump by having an dissident uncle murdered with an anti-aircraft gun), that Trump might be taking North Korea's side. South Korea impeached and then criminally convicted its former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, for illegal military actions he took in an attempt to justify a declaration of martial law that he thought would help him stay in power.

Why does this matter?

• South Korea is an ally of the United States and North Korea is not, and no president who is confused about that is fit to serve. 

• The leader of a democracy should not so reliably and predictably side with authoritarian regimes.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said the deaths of four Americans in Iran "wasn't very impactful."

Trump had this exchange with reporters aboard Air Force One today:

Q: President Zelenskyy says Russia is giving Iran satellite imagery of US bases in the Gulf to help them target. What can you do about that?

TRUMP: Well, we'll find out if that's true. I'll ask Putin. We'll find out.

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: It hasn't had much impact, because we've knocked the hell out of them. …They may be giving, but—uh, if they are, it hasn't worked out, because they have no army, they have no air force, they have no navy, they have no nothing. So it hasn't worked out—I don't think, I don't think they've been doing it, certainly not at a high level. And if they have, it hasn't been very impactful.

The strikes over the past two weeks that Trump called "not very impactful" by the supposedly nonexistent Iranian military killed four American soldiers and injured dozens more.

Zelenskyy has offered proof, although there's very little doubt about the truth of the allegations. Russia is a geopolitical ally of Iran and has a particular interest in extending Trump's war on Iran as long as possible. Unlike the United States, Russia's desperately degraded economy really does rely on oil sales to stay afloat, and the higher prices caused by Iran's blockade of the Persian Gulf have helped the Putin regime enormously. 

 

Bogging the United States down also helps Russia in its war against Ukraine. With the United States' own supply of critical munitions getting dangerously low, there are fewer available for Ukraine. The Defense Department has already said it won't be able to supply Ukraine with weapons Congress has already authorized until a date in 2029 that, coincidentally or not, is after Trump's second term will end.

Trump is personally, financially, and politically beholden to Vladimir Putin, and is in effect on the opposite side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict from the rest of the United States. He didn't say when he'd "ask" Putin if Russia helped kill American troops, but it wouldn't be the first time Trump has excused attempts by the Putin regime to do just that. In 2020, he blew off credible intelligence reports that Russia was paying bounties on the murder of American troops in Afghanistan, and then pretended nobody had told him about them.

Why does this matter?

• Nobody who thinks the deaths of American servicemembers isn't "impactful" is fit to command them. 

• A president who can't stand up to a hostile power helping to kill Americans isn't fit for office.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had a "businesslike and highly constructive" phone call with Vladimir Putin, according to Vladimir Putin.

Trump spent an hour and a half on the Fourth of July talking with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The call was "businesslike and constructive" and centered on Russia's desire for a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine, something Trump "reaffirmed his readiness" to make happen.

At least, that's what the Russian government said today. Trump had kept the call a secret.

This is a common pattern with Trump and Putin, having happened at least half a dozen times now. Needless to say, it's not common practice for American presidents to have secret peer-to-peer talks with the leaders of hostile nations, precisely because it allows the other party to control the narrative and undermine the United States.

Trump, whose demeanor towards Putin ranges from the awestruck to the submissive, doesn't seem able to break the habit. This may be because he is genuinely psychologically incapable of resisting this kind of manipulation from Putin. That's certainly the prevailing opinion on Russian state-run media, which mercilessly mocks Trump as a weak thrall to Putin. 

Putin's ability to command ninety minutes of Trump's time on the Fourth of July, in the middle of the 250th anniversary celebrations, certainly supports that theory.

Another factor is that Trump's history of secret backchannel communications with Russia he'd prefer the American people not know about goes back to before his first term in office. Even with his collusion with the Putin regime to influence the 2016 election a matter of public record (and certified by a Republican-led Senate committee) Trump is still politically vulnerable on the subject: he is virtually alone on the entire political spectrum in his support for Putin and the Russian objective in the war against Ukraine. 

Why does this matter?

• A president who keeps falling for the same trick over and over again is either too stupid, too gullible, or too weak to hold office. 

• Americans shouldn't have to rely on Russia for information about their own government. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to make public servants sign the same nondisclosure agreements his ex-wives had to.

The Trump administration released a draft proposal today that would force federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs, in an apparent attempt to stop embarrassing and politically damaging leaks. 

Of course, there are already legal means to bar the release of classified information, but most of what happens in government offices isn't classified. Stories about Trump being manipulated by junior staffers, or paying inappropriate sexual attention to them, or throwing temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way aren't matters of national security—but they are things that government employees witness, and tell Congress or the press about. They're also firsthand witnesses to incompetence, immorality, and corruption on the part of Trump's senior officials.

It's this kind of sunlight that Trump's rule would try to shut out, by giving him new ways to punish and financially ruin government employees who witnessed wrongdoing. He's tried it before in both public and private life. For example, in 2019, he threatened to sue a former White House employee who had written a tell-all book for violation of an NDA. Trump ultimately backed down, in part because without any legal authority behind it, the agreement was almost certainly unenforceable. 

Trump's also made extensive use of NDAs in his private life. He's forced each of his ex-wives to sign one as part of their divorce settlements, and they're a routine part of working for his businesses. But even then, they don't always have the desired effect. Trump tried unsuccessfully to use NDAs to keep the adult film actress Stormy Daniels from revealing their sexual encounter, which took place shortly after the birth of Trump's youngest son. That arrangement, signed under a pseudonym ("David Dennison"), became a key element in Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts in New York.

Whistleblower protections are baked right into federal law, and for good reason. Government officials engaging in corrupt or illegal behavior usually try to keep it secret. Bringing public scrutiny to bear on the details is sometimes the only way of rooting out that kind of corruption. Likewise, journalists who publish internal government information that sources bring them usually can't be forced to reveal those sources, or be prosecuted themselves, although it hasn't stopped Trump from trying to do just that in the past.

It was exactly this kind of protected whistleblower action that led to Trump's first impeachment. Alexander Vindman, an Army lieutenant colonel working for the National Security Council, was the first to raise alarms about the phone call in which Trump tried to strongarm Ukraine's president into ginning up a fake investigation against Joe Biden's son. Trump had correctly believed that Biden would be the Democratic nominee in 2020, and that he would need to manufacture some disqualifying scandal in order to beat Biden in the general election. But the resulting blowback, which saw many Republicans openly disgusted by Trump's abuse of an allied power in pursuit of domestic political dirty tricks, helped cost Trump the election instead.

Why does this matter?

• The purpose of government isn't to help Donald Trump cover up his scandals.  

• One way to stop people from sharing evidence of corruption and incompetence is to run a less corrupt and incompetent administration.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He identified with the Russian point of view in several different ways.

The German military surrendered to Allied commanders on May 8, 1945. Today, Trump signed a presidential proclamation commemorating the anniversary of that day, which is known in the West as Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day. But Trump's proclamation had an odd detail: it referred to the day as "Victory in World War II Day." This is, obviously, not correct—the Second World War didn't end for the United States until September 2, with the surrender of Japan.

But there is one nation that refers to the May date as "Victory Day" because it was not at war with Japan at the time: the Soviet Union, and its successor state Russia. Trump is politically, financially, and personally indebted to Vladimir Putin, and has frequently demonstrated a kind of worshipfulness of, or at least submissiveness to, the Russian dictator.

Of course, Trump makes up new words and phrases and spellings and rules of capitalization all the time, so it's not impossible that he just stumbled on the phrase by accident. (Trump, just a few weeks shy of 80, is not quite old enough to personally remember the surrender of Japan—although he should have learned about it in school.)

But it comes on the same day that Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, revealed that Trump had personally begged him to agree to a ceasefire with Russia over the "Victory Day" weekend. (Russia celebrates the day on May 9, because the official surrender happened just after midnight Moscow time.) Ukraine called the three-day ceasefire a political stunt, noting that Russia won't allow an actual break in hostilities. 

Trump had made a point of insisting that the "Victory Day" ceasefire was his idea, but in reality, the idea is known to have come from Putin, who used Trump to put pressure on Ukraine. Trump and Putin are functionally on the same side in the conflict, even as the United States remains an ally of Ukraine. 

Putin has been anxious to have a declaration of "peace" in place on the day that Russia traditionally holds a military parade in Red Square. The war has been unexpectedly devastating for Russia, owing to mismanagement and overconfidence on Putin's part. It has dragged on for years when it was supposed to be over in weeks, so the optics are important even for a dictator who has essentially crushed all opposition.

Zelenskyy responded with a presidential proclamation of his own, sarcastically declaring Red Square and only Red Square a safe zone from Ukrainian attacks during the morning of the parade. 

  

Why does this matter?

• It's bad that a dictator of a hostile nation can make the President of the United States run errands for him. 

• A smarter president would have learned from Putin's blunder in Ukraine and not made precisely the same stupid assumptions in a war of choice against a large, technologically sophisticated country.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He offered condolences for Rudy Giuliani's poor health as only he could or would.

Rudy Giuliani is hospitalized tonight in "critical but stable condition." No other information is presently available. 

Giuliani was mayor of New York City during the September 11th attacks, and was briefly a top-tier political celebrity as a result. Later examinations of his actions before and during the attack, showing that he'd made enormous errors of judgment in managing New York's emergency response system cost him a lot of that goodwill. First responders went into the towers with radios that couldn't receive urgent commands to evacuate when it became clear that collapse was imminent, costing hundreds of firefighters' lives. This was a known problem that Giuliani dragged his feet on for two whole terms.

Giuliani was also responsible for the location of the city's emergency command center, which he put in the Trade Center itself over the strenuous objection of the NYPD. He used city police and city services to facilitate an extramarital affair with Judith Nathan (who later became his third wife) and then billed the costs of covering it up to city agencies. The two things are related: Giuliani insisted that the command center be within walking distance of his office, and it included a luxuriously-appointed "bunker" apartment for his private use, where he often met Nathan.

Giuliani tried to set himself up as a power broker in the post 9/11 world, to little success given his fame. He championed his hand-picked NYPD Commissioner, Bernie Kerik, as the Secretary of Homeland Security, but Kerik had to withdraw over a scandal that he had employed an undocumented woman as a nanny. That turned out to be the least of his crimes, which included tax fraud and lying to the FBI. (Trump, who has also committed tax fraud and knowingly employed undocumented workers, later pardoned him.)

After a brief flirtation with a presidential run in 2008—famously derailed by then-candidate Joe Biden's joke about Giuliani being unable to make a sentence that didn't involve "a noun, a verb, and 9/11"—he attached himself to the Trump campaign. He was personally involved in Trump's attempts to blackmail Ukraine into "investigating" Biden, the crimes that formed the basis for Trump's first impeachment. Though increasingly erratic and unreliable during Trump's first term, and widely understood to have a serious alcohol problem, Giuliani's willingness to break any rule or law in pursuit of Trump's aims seems to have convinced Trump that he was the "Roy Cohn" figure that Trump had been searching for. 

Giuliani was increasingly desperate for money to support a Trump-like luxury lifestyle, and that depended on Trump staying in office, so that Giuliani could—among other things—sell access to Trump for pardons. That may explain why Giuliani was so willing to break the law on Trump's behalf in a desperate attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election. He lied to courts about matters of fact during the litigation that immediately followed, made what judges called "strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations" in an attempt to drag proceedings out past the deadline for Congress to act, and viciously slandered election workers with bizarre conspiracy theories that got them death threats. He lost virtually all of his dwindling fortune to those workers in lawsuits. He was disbarred and indicted for the election crimes. Trump issued a pardon for his federal crimes after returning to office. 

One other event, no more bizarre than many in his life but particularly horrifying in terms of what it said about his morality and mental state in his later life, is worth mentioning. Giuliani was "interviewed" as part of the comedy sequel Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. In reality, the interviewer was the actor Maria Bakalova (a 24-year-old convincingly made up to look younger), but Giuliani had been led to believe that she was an underage right-wing journalism protégée. He flirted with her, invited her up to his private hotel suite, and then laid back on his bed and began to reach into his pants. "Borat," played by actor Sascha Baron Cohen, then interrupted the scene before Giuliani could actually expose himself or make a direct sexual advance on Bakalova.

 

Trump, who is two years younger than Giuliani, reacted to the news on his boutique social media by blaming Democrats and insisting that Giuliani had been "RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING."

Our fabulous Rudy Giuliani, a True Warrior, and the Best Mayor in the History of New York City, BY FAR, has been hospitalized, and is in critical condition. What a tragedy that he was treated so badly by the Radical Left Lunatics, Democrats ALL — AND HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! They cheated on the Elections, fabricated hundreds of stories, did anything possible to destroy our Nation, and now, look at Rudy. So sad! President DONALD J. TRUMP  

As for it being Democrats who treated Giuliani badly—and Trump's supposed concern over it—there is a coda to the relationship between the two men. Trump, whose net worth has ballooned to over $10 billion since returning to the presidency, owes Giuliani more than $2 million in legal fees, but is refusing to pay, or even take calls from his former lawyer.

 

Trump and Giuliani (in drag) in a comedy sketch recorded for a charity event in 2000. Later in the sketch, Trump rubs his face in Giuliani's "breasts" and tries to kiss him. As president, Trump has tried to gin up outrage at "immoral" drag performances.

Giuliani at the infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference. 

 

A substance, possibly hair dye or facial makeup that had been applied to the hair, drips down Giuliani's face during a press conference after Trump lost the 2020 election.

 

Why does this matter?

• You can judge a lot about a person by the company they keep.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to erase the history of both his impeachments.

This morning, Trump promoted an article written by his impeachment lawyer and mutual friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, suggesting that his first impeachment could be "expunged" by an act of Congress. The gist of Dershowitz's argument is that one of the witnesses against Trump consulted with Democratic lawmakers before coming forward. (Congress has the Constitutional responsibility for oversight of the executive branch, so contacting lawmakers about criminal behavior in the White House is not exactly out of bounds.)

Not even Trump disputes the basic facts that led to his first impeachment: fearing that he would lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden, Trump pressured Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to publicly announce a criminal investigation in to Biden's son Hunter, and to (falsely) claim that it was Ukraine that had tried to interfere in the 2016 election rather than Russia. He conditioned continued American military support for Ukraine on this, and then obstructed Congress when it tried to investigate after whistleblowers brought evidence of Trump's scheme to light.

Coincidentally or not, Trump also tried to legally undo the subject of his second impeachment today. The DOJ, now led by his personal criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche, asked federal courts to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of a number of members of white supremacist and militia organizations related to the January 6th attack on Congress. Trump, who was impeached in the last days of his first term for that attempt to cling to power, had already granted clemency to anyone who committed crimes on his behalf that day. 

Neither action would have any real legal or practical effect. But Trump, for all his legendary outrage at anyone—whistleblowers, voters, courts, or Congress—who would hold him accountable, seems to genuinely believe he can rewrite history by fiat even as he calls attention to it.
 

Why does this matter?

• Reality doesn't change just because Donald Trump doesn't like what happened in it. 

• Corruption, obstruction of justice, and attempted coups are still wrong.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He made his dictator fetish about as clear as he possibly could.

In the last few days, Trump has attacked and blockaded Venezuela, renewed threats to annex Greenland, tried to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia, and threatened violence against a laundry list of countries including but not necessarily limited to Cuba, Canada, Mexico, Iran, Syria, Denmark, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, and NATO as a whole.

Trump made two more alarming comments in an interview released by the New York Times today. The first came when he was asked if there were any limits on his powers to invade, harass, or overthrow other nations. He responded:

Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.  

In reality, Trump is above neither domestic nor international law, although he can't be prosecuted while he remains in office—especially since he made a point of appointing his personal defense lawyers to run the Department of Justice. 

The second alarming thing Trump said today is that he thinks that Xi Jinping, the authoritarian ruler-for-life of China, has the same rights where Taiwan is concerned, saying of Xi that "it's up to him" whether China breaks over 70 years of US-imposed stalemate and reconquers the island. This follows concerns that China, Russia, and other authoritarian regimes looking to expand their regional influence might follow Trump's lead in Venezuela. 

Trump's branding for the idea that he can attack, colonize, or extort any country that isn't the special province of another authoritarian ruler is the "Donroe Doctrine." That's meant to be a play on the Monroe Doctrine from the early 1800s. There's a more accurate historical analogy, though: the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact), in which Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Europe into their respective spheres of influence.

Why does this matter?

• "I am accountable to nobody on the planet except myself" is what a cartoon supervillain says, not the leader of a democracy. 

• The "morality" of a convicted felon, tax cheat, rapist, fraudster, and longtime close friend of Jeffrey Epstein isn't going to stop him from doing anything. 

• Empowering dictators is a bad idea for the United States but it is what you'd expect from a man who openly admires them and their tactics to the point of worshipfulness.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He repeated Russian propaganda and then shrugged when told it was a lie.

Trump told reporters today he was "very angry" about a Ukrainian drone attack on the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump, who has become increasingly desperate to conclude the war between Russia and Ukraine on terms favorable to his political patron, had this exchange with a reporter today:

Trump on a report that Ukraine tried to strike Putin's residence: "I don't like it. It's not good. I heard about it this morning. You know who told me about it? President Putin told me about it ... I was very angry about it."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 29, 2025 at 12:41 PM

Q: Are you worried that the alleged strike on Putin's residence could scuttle the peace—

TRUMP: Yeah, I don't, I don't like it, it's not good, uhh, I heard about it this morning. You know who told me about it? President Putin told me about it Early in the morning, he said he was — attacked. It's no good, it's no good. …You know, it's a delicate period of time. It's not the right time. It's one thing to be offensive, because they [?] were offensive. It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that — and — can't do it. And I learned about it from Putin today, I was very angry about it.

Notice that Trump says twice that he learned of the attack from Putin, and not from any American military or intelligence source. That is most likely because there was no such attack, and Putin's claim is an apparently successful attempt to bamboozle Trump.

Even Trump loyalists were appalled by Trump's repetition of the Putin line, something that has become a recurring theme where Trump and Putin are concerned.

Notably, the "attack" gives the Putin regime an excuse to yet again pull back from Trump's "negotiations," a pattern that has been repeating all year. Neither Ukraine nor Russia really wants a settlement now. For Ukraine, any deal that Putin would agree to would be tantamount to surrender. Every plan Trump has been willing to support involves Russia taking even more land at the bargaining table than it has been able to win by force. 

And Russia is counting on Trump keeping the United States and Ukraine's European allies out of the fight long enough to finally defeat a much smaller and militarily weaker opponent that has nevertheless kept it at bay for three years. 

Later in the same meeting, a reporter gently asked if there was any actual evidence that the attack had taken place. Trump literally shrugged and said, "You're saying maybe the attack didn't take place? That's possible too," before once again insisting that Putin had told him that it had.

 

Regarding Putin's nonsense that Ukraine attacked his house, a journalist asks "maybe there was no attack?". Trump dismisses it because Putin would never lie. Moron.

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— Jay in Kyiv (@jayinkyiv.bsky.social) December 29, 2025 at 1:00 PM

 

 

It's worth noting that even if Putin's claim of an attack had been true, he is a legitimate military target under the laws of war. Putin himself has repeatedly tried to assassinate Zelenskyy. 

Why does this matter?

• A president who is too dim or senile to understand that a hostile foreign leader may be lying to him is not fit for office. 

• It is a disgrace for the United States to betray an ally like this. 

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said Russia only wanted to help Ukraine.

Trump has returned to a full-court press to get Ukraine to surrender to the Putin regime on terms dictated by Russia. Today, after a phone call with Vladimir Putin and a meeting with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump had this exchange with a reporter, in which he claimed that "Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed."

Q: In your conversation with President Putin, did you discuss what responsibility Russia will have for any kind of reconstruction of Ukraine— 

TRUMP: I did. I did. They're going to be helping. Russia's going to be helping. Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed. Once— it sounds— a little strange but I was explaining to the president [Zelenskyy], uh, President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine— succeeding. Including, uh, supplying energy, electricity, and other things at very low prices. So, lotta—lotta good things came out of that call today.

The Putin regime does not want to see Ukraine succeed except as a conquered province of Russia.

Russia invaded and annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula in 2014, then launched a surprise decapitation attack against the remainder of the country and its government in 2022. Since then, it has killed nearly 100,000 Ukrainians (including more than 10,000 civilians), stolen Ukrainian children from parents in occupied territory, and committed numerous war crimes.

Reaction to Trump's endorsement of the Putin regime's "generous feeling" was sharply negative and bipartisan.

Trump has openly sought and received Putin's help in influencing American elections through disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks, and is personally and financially beholden to him. 

Why does this matter?

• Past a certain point it doesn't matter if the president is being controlled by a hostile foreign power or just behaving exactly as though he were.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He presented Ukraine with an ultimatum for a "peace deal" that Russia wrote.

Although he bragged on the campaign trail that he'd be able to do it on "day one," Trump has completely failed to broker a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine—in spite of all but switching the United States' side in the middle of the war. Today, he offered Ukraine yet another ultimatum, demanding that its government accept a 28-point plan by next Thursday or have the United States completely withdraw its military support.

The "new" plan is much like Trump's last few attempts to broker a deal. Like those previous proposals, it gives the Putin regime all of the portions of Ukraine it's seized through force, and then some. It forces Ukraine to stand down its army, enters it into an exploitative agreement with the United States for the extraction of mineral resources, and forces it to supply Russia with electricity. It also richly rewards both the Russian state and the Putin regime with the end of sanctions and readmission into the G8 group of nations. And, as with the previous proposals, it concedes more to Russia than Russia has been able to take by force or threat.

In summary, it amounts to a complete surrender by Ukraine in all but name. For obvious reasons, the Putin regime is delighted by it, and has said so publicly.

There is one new twist to Trump's latest plan, however—or at least one that hadn't been noticed in previous drafts: it was apparently written directly by Russians. The English-language draft shows clear evidence of having been translated directly (and awkwardly) from a Russian-language original—even though, supposedly, the U.S. State Department and Trump's dubiously qualified personal envoy Steve Witkoff were the ones brokering the deal. 

If that had been the case, it would have been written in standard English first and then translated into Ukrainian and Russian. Pressed on the point, the White House admitted that the text had been written with the "help" of Russian envoy Kirill Dimitriev—and no Ukrainian counterpart.

In other words, Trump is pressuring Ukraine to accept its "mediation" to end the war by restating Russia's demands. 

Trump is financially and politically beholden to the Putin regime. But Americans outside of the Trump White House overwhelmingly favor continuing support for Ukraine.

Why does this matter?

• American foreign policy should reflect what Americans want, not what Vladimir Putin wants. 

• A president who is compromised in any way by a hostile foreign power is not fit to serve. 

• Betraying an ally like this is disgraceful.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He confirmed that Putin had either scared or bamboozled him back onto Russia's side in its war against Ukraine.

Several outlets are reporting new details today about Trump's Friday meeting with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Sources within the Trump administration now say that it became a shouting match, with Trump yelling that Putin would "destroy" Ukraine. Trump reportedly flew into a rage at seeing maps of occupied Ukrainian territory, sweeping them off the table and complaining that he couldn't understand them because he'd never been to the places they showed.

The takeaway message from Friday's meeting, the sources said, was clear: Ukraine should simply let Russia take at the negotiating table even more territory than it has been able to win on the battlefield—specifically, the heavily fortified region that is all that prevents the Putin regime from launching another invasion against Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. Trump cited Russian talking points in what appears to have been a last-ditch effort to get Zelenskyy to simply give up.

In an interview that aired this morning, Trump confirmed the reporting, saying that Putin was "gonna take something. I mean, they fought and, he, uh, he has a lot of property. I mean, you know, he's won certain property," before making a derogatory comment about the United States' lack of interest in wars of conquest.

On one level, this does look like the latest in a series of flip-flops as Trump tries desperately to claim a "peace" deal that neither side is interested in. But while Trump's rhetoric has changed almost weekly, the bizarre underlying situation has remained largely unchanged: the United States' posture is that Ukraine is an ally that must be defended, and Donald Trump's position is the opposite.

It's quite likely that Putin himself is the author of Trump's sudden belief in the hopelessness of Ukraine's position. They spoke last Thursday, just before the meeting with Zelenskyy. 

In reality, Ukraine's battlefield situation is not nearly so grim as Trump now appears to think it is, and would be much less so if Trump approved adequate military aid including Tomahawk missiles. Trump insisted today that the United States needed every last one of its supply, which is greater than 1,000, even though Ukraine is asking for at most 50, and there is literally no other theater of war in which the US might need to deploy offensive long-range missiles.

Why does this matter?

• No one this easily manipulated by a hostile foreign nation is fit to be president. 

• Neither is the person who throws a tantrum over maps he can't make himself understand. 

• If Trump isn't acting on Russia's behalf, then the only other explanation is that Putin can scare him so easily with a single phone call that he just gives up.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tried to give himself an excuse for not punishing the Putin regime for its encroachment over NATO territory.

Where Russia is concerned, most of Trump's second term has been an extension of the first. Trump, who is personally and politically indebted to the Putin regime in ways previously unthinkable for an American president, has occasionally made feints at independence, only to retreat before actually doing anything. 

That pattern repeated itself today. Earlier this week, Russian drones violated the airspace of Poland, a NATO ally—the first time in the 76 years of the alliance's existence that a hostile nation has done so. Trump waited 14 hours before responding, and then only in the form of a social media post—and not even with a threat of consequences, but a question: "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones?"

Almost immediately afterwards, Trump walked back even that mildly critical tweet, saying without any evidence that Russia's incursion (which shut down all Polish air traffic for most of a day) "could have been a mistake." (It was not.)

But even then, Trump administration officials were willing to rattle the saber a little with talk of increasing sanctions against Russian officials, which hurt the financial bottom line of the oligarchs that Putin has doled out control of state industries to. This is something that Trump has also occasionally hinted at, though never acted on.

Today, though, Trump slammed the door on even that possibility. He claimed that he wanted to punish the Putin regime, but for some unstated reason could only do so if all NATO members agreed to stop buying all Russian oil immediately. This is all but impossible for two reasons. First, it would hurt European allies more than it would hurt Russia, particularly going into the winter. And second, at least two NATO countries, Hungary and Turkey, are themselves run by autocrats who have used Trump to strengthen their own grip on power, and are effectively neutral where the Putin regime is concerned.

In other words, Trump is using the fact that 31 other allied countries won't instantaneously agree to do something against their own interests to escape having to do something—stand up to Vladimir Putin—that he is famously unwilling or unable to do in any event.

Trump, who has spent essentially all of his second term on the opposite side of a major war from his own government and public, once again today blamed Ukraine and the United States for somehow causing Russia's unprovoked surprise attack in 2022 that set off the current conflict.

Why does this matter?

• Past a certain point, it doesn't matter if a president's refusal to act in defense of the United States is because he's corrupt, scared, or just impotent.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He "got played" by Vladimir Putin, according to his own party.

At least 19 Russian drones violated Polish airspace last night, as part of the Putin regime's continued attack on Ukraine. Commercial aviation was abruptly shut down throughout Poland as its F-16s, aided by Dutch F-35s, destroyed some of the drones. No casualties were reported, but at least one house was destroyed.

Trump's response, more than 12 hours later, was to post to his private microblogging website: "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go!"

Poland is a NATO member. This is the first time since NATO was founded that hostile aircraft were engaged inside a member nation's airspace. But it's not the first time that Russia's attacks on Ukraine have affected Poland, which has repeatedly had to scramble its fighter jets to defend its airspace. 

Trump, whose political and personal debt to Vladimir Putin has defined both terms of his presidency, has been openly anti-NATO. He falsely speaks of it as an American-owned protection racket, something that the United States pays for in order to defend other member nations, and has threatened to unilaterally shut it down. He's also repeated a Putin talking point: that Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine was justified because Ukraine might have joined NATO at some point in the future.

But in reality, all NATO member nations maintain their own military forces for the mutual defense of one another. Only the United States has ever formally requested other NATO members to come to its aid (after the September 11th attacks).

Trump has been desperately courting Putin in the hopes of winning a cease-fire in its war against Ukraine, something he promised he could accomplish on "day one" of his second term. But his mild tweet-only response was so alarming that even members of Trump's own party spoke out openly against him, calling it "pathetic" and demanding much harsher responses in terms of sanctions and commitments to honoring obligations to NATO than he has been willing to give.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA): "President Trump wants to make sure that he is giving every opportunity for peace to get this war resolved. But Putin is playing him right now."

Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton: "Putin has acted like he has a free hand since the Alaska summit. He's ignored any further conversation on a ceasefire, the Russian military is expanding its operations, and he's received the political support of his friends Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, and Kim Jong Un." 

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): "I think Russia is playing – they’re really playing us like a piano right now."

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS): "Amid the brutality, Putin has played games with peace talks. We’ve all seen it.  With one hand, he signaled interest in negotiations.  With the other, he lobbed bombs and kills civilians. …Putin clearly has no intention to stop." 

Why does this matter?

• There's no practical difference between a president who won't take necessary action in defense of the United States and its allies, and a president who (for whatever reason) can't take action.