The Right Way To Deal With Trump

What Trump and Putin Were Doing and How Zelensky Wrong-Footed Them

Hi All,

I know some people were a little miffed with the tone of the weekend update I sent out on Sunday. It was said that I was too hard on Europe’s leaders, that they were just doing what they had to do to get Trump onboard, to show that the West was still united; that if doing a little bowing and scraping to Trump resulted in him working with Europe, than it was more than worth it.

That impulse is perhaps understandable (though by this time it seem amazingly optimistic after everything), but it only works if one basic assumption is true for which there is no evidence—that assumption is that Trump can be persuaded to take a common position with Europe against Putin by being agreeable or deferential. The evidence overwhelmingly shows the opposite, that Trump will always find a way to support Putin in the end, that his occasional critical tweets about Russia are window-dressing, that he despises European countries and would be happy to see Ukraine fail (and even cease to exist).