Phone Call Fallout; What's Up With Trump?

Another day brings more analysis of Trump’s phone call to Putin. None of it changes our initial assessment: Putin, as expected, didn’t budge an inch. The curious aspect of the aftermath is that Trump appears to view this as another big success. Today Danny Davis and Doug Macgregor discussed the phone call at length. I’ve prepared a partial transcript.

Macgregor and Davis emphasize what Trump doesn’t appear to get. That Trump is deeply implicated in the war—both in its origins and in its continuation. Putin, of course, is fully aware that Trump’s ceasefire ploy would represent a defeat for Russia. Since Russia is winning the war, that’s a non-starter as a talking point. Of course Putin will talk—and talk. But Trump has no credibility with Putin, beyond Trump’s position as president of the country with the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Col Doug Macgregor: Trump Putin Phone Call FALLOUT /Europe in a PANIC!

Mac: President Trump ... seems to think that if he can't persuade President Putin to adopt his position--which is, 'let's have a ceasefire and talk'--then he's just going to pick up his toys and go away. I don't think President Trump understands that his toys are still in the game and, as long as they're in the game, his credibility is almost zero.

DD: You pointed out that Putin, when he came out, did say in in his about three minute statement after the meeting, 'Yeah, sure, we'll agree to talk about these things. We'll talk about a ceasefire. We're more interested in the end of war negotiations, but we're open to that.' And then he added, 'Of course, it has to address all the root causes,' which is their code word for all the things you just mentioned about the territory and all that kinda stuff. Meaning that Putin didn't change anything that he had said in the many months prior to that. So Putin seemed relatively happy. Trump came out and said *he* was pretty happy about how things went--especially on his Truth Social. But it really seems that the Russian media picked up on all the nuances, and they have a good idea that it worked out *really well* for their side. Here's how the Russian media viewed it today [DD is playing a tape of a Brit analyzing the Kommersant article]:

Clearly Kommersant believes the call went very well--for the Kremlin. It quotes President Putin as saying Russia agreed to work on "a memorandum about a possible future peace agreement, defining a number of positions." "Possible" and "future" make it all sound rather vague. And that's the whole point. As the paper says: "This way, Russia wins extra time and an unspecified time frame while negotiations take place on agreeing the principles of a memorandum about 'something that's possible' in the future and 'that defines a number of positions.' And Russia will use this time as it sees fit.” The paper quotes Putin as saying, "The conversation with Trump was very constructive I rate it highly." The reporter adds: "Of course he does. The telephone call went his way." He notes that at the start of the call, "Vladimir Putin congratulated the 47th US president on the birth of his 11th grandchild and wished Donald Trump's daughter good health. That was very smart. After that, you could say the conversation was destined to succeed." A political pundit tells Izvestia, "The results of the conversation with Trump--as described by Putin--show that Moscow continues to oppose a comprehensive ceasefire until a compromise can be found on those questions Russia considers key. First and foremost, we're talking about Ukraine making compromises and concessions." I think that last line says it all, really. Russia is ready for compromise and concessions as long as it's Ukraine doing the compromising and making the concessions.

I mean that certainly that last part there seems completely in line with everything you've been saying since the war began—that Russia is not going to make concessions or compromises because they don't have to.

[Plays tape of Veep Vance remarks.]

Mac: Vice President Vance knows nothing about Russia, knows nothing about the current government that is leading Russia, doesn't understand the mood inside Russia. If anything the Russian people are just as adamant as President Putin is in establishing the end state that he's outlined.

This next is particularly damning. It raises the question: What did we vote for? And for those who pooh pooh the importance of appointments, the reference to the now departed Waltz is telling.

Mac: We have spent billions of dollars building up Ukraine as an enemy of Russia. And, unfortunately, instead of making a final break with the past, Trump has simply extended the Biden administration's policies into the future. Remember what Waltz said after he met with Sullivan. He said, 'Well I've met with Jake Sullivan,’ the current national security adviser. ‘There's no daylight between us.' Everyone was aghast! Everyone who voted for Trump said, 'Then why did we vote for President Trump?' Well, President Trump was elected. He takes office and guess what? He does exactly what Waltz said and extends this absolutely disastrous policy indefinitely into the future. Now in the midst of all of this, while this continues to go on, we continue to ship arms and equipment to Ukraine. He is telling people, 'We've got to get out of Europe and we're going to withdraw our forces from Europe.' Okay, make sense out of this. How do you do one thing and then do another, or say one thing and do another? We do it all the time.

So if you're sitting in Moscow you're scratching your head and you're asking, 'Well, which Trump is the real Trump and what do the Americans really want?' There's no consistency. You cannot govern a great nation like the United States, you cannot conduct a foreign policy without some measure of certainty. You know this notion: 'That's strategic ambiguity, keep them guessing.' Well, if you keep them guessing they're going to guess. You may wake up and discover it's the wrong guess, and then suddenly you are at war and whatever is left of your country is a smoldering ruin. This is not what we need. We need consistency. We had consistent stupidity under Biden. We've now extended that. But we are not consistent because President Trump is, as we've said, all over the map.

Next, Davis refers to a conference call in which Trump briefed European “leaders” on his amazingly successful phone call:

DD: The [European] leaders involved in the call were surprised that Trump seemed relatively pleased with what he heard from Putin and presented it as a new development--although the Russian leader did not appear to have changed his position at all.

I was discussing some of this at dinner with my wife and I said, You know, the current Trump seems almost like a caricature of his previous self. Is he maybe getting old? Here’s what I mean. It’s all the flip flops and inconsistencies—they leave you wondering: What’s the point? Is it possible that there really isn’t any point, that Trump isn’t as sharp as he was before? Not senile, but declining and over compensating—or something?

Russia. First we’re gonna stop shipping weapons to Ukraine, then we’re back at it. Then we’re gonna walk away, then we’re back talking. Then all the smoke and mirrors of the “rare earth deal”. And so forth.

Iran. First no enrichment—at all. Then, well, OK, for civilian use. Then we’re back to none. First we were gonna bomb the shit out of Iran if they didn’t make a deal real fast. But then, well, maybe sanctions.

Yemen. Do I need to even talk about that fiasco?

China. Same. Sky high tariffs. Woops! Exceptions galore. Then a 90 day pause.

And then there’s the over the top threats and insults directed at world leaders—the real ones, the ones Trump needs to deal with on a personal level. For example, in the leadup to the 90 day tariff pause with China—something the US wanted—Xi refused to talk to Trump because of Trump’s past behavior and the likelihood that Trump would be yakking to the press about what Xi said or didn’t say. Which might or might not be actually true. Remember—how many times has Trump said about various people: He/They really want to make a deal, he/they just don’t know how. And how many deals has that led to?

It’s enough to make you agree with Mac that Trump agrees with the last person he spoke with. But that doesn’t really seem like the Trump we thought we knew. It all seems too volatile, like what you might get from someone who’s growing old. I mean, some aspects of Trump we’ve seen before—the daft appointments, followed by the precipitate need to replace the incompetents and disloyal employees. But the whole thing, when you put it all together, …

I’m just wondering whether he’s past his prime.