I follow the news but I’m not addicted. Nonetheless, I’ve detected a pattern in how President Trump describes phone calls he makes with world leaders. He invariably labels these conversations “very good.”
He did so again this week after he talked with President Putin of Russia and Chairman Xi Jinping of China. Both calls he dubbed “very good,” but on each occasion, he could not report a single achievement reached or agreed upon.
What I found particularly bizarre was Trump’s relaying Putin’s threat to retaliate against Ukraine for that country’s strike on Russia’s nuclear-carrying bomber fleet. Trump repeated it in such a nonchalant manner that I kept asking myself: “Gee, Mr. President, didn’t you even try to talk him out of it? Or how about warning him that there would be consequences?”
Trump also noted, no doubt quite correctly, that his call with Putin would not result in a ceasefire in Ukraine.
You think? I mean, aren’t you as the leader of the free world supposed to tighten the screws on warmongering dictators until they give up?
Now, in the Xi talk, something did result: Both invited each other to visit their country.
Even more bizarre, in a presser with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz today, when asked if he planned any sanctions against Russia, Trump hemmed and hawed and then announced he would sanction Ukraine at the same time.
All this reminded me of the song played by the British army as they marched out of Yorktown to end the Revolutionary War. The title was “The World Turned Upside Down.”
IN OTHER NEWS TODAY….
A public and ugly feud has broken out between former BFFs Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Without going into the nitty-gritty of their back-and-forth accusations and put-downs, let me say that I originally sided with Musk when he criticized the “big beautiful bill,” but now it appears that both gentlemen have preferred to return to high school and engage in juvenile petulance.