Even a war thousands of miles away is all about himself and the 2020 election, according to Donald Trump.
Trump joined Laura Ingraham last night for a session in which they both pretended he had been tough on Russia, “forgot” his open obsequiousness to Vladimir Putin and his extorting of Ukraine. Also thrown down the memory hole was the fact that Russia had tried to help Trump win re-election in 2020. That wasn’t because Russia wanted someone tougher on Putin than Joe Biden.
But Fox News is about weaponizing news, not informing. So Ingraham tried to get Trump to declare that Putin had been emboldened by President Biden's weakness.
But Trump could not stay on message long enough. Or, more likely, the only message that really mattered to him was about himself.
INGRAHAM: We're just learning that U.S. officials are looking at a potential amphibious landing now in Odessa, Ukraine. Again, a month ago, or three weeks ago, all the so-called experts were saying that, you know, Putin was probably going to just be content with staying in those separatist regions. But I think given what's unfolded, sadly, with a lot of weakness in the United States, they just decided to go for it. I mean, it looks like they're going for it.
And where does that leave NATO? The NATO alliance?
TRUMP: I think you're exactly right. I think that's what happened. He was going to be satisfied with the east, and now he sees the weakness and the incompetence of the stupidity of this administration. And as an American, I'm angry about it. And I'm saddened by it. And it all happened because of a rigged election. This would have never happened and that includes inflation. And that includes millions of people pouring in on a monthly basis, far more than 3 million people. And they're coming from 129 different countries. We have no idea what's happening, and they're destroying our country.
At that point, Ingraham interrupted to go the U.N. where the Ukrainian ambassador was speaking.
But as Media Matters noted, Fox soon cut away from most of Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya's remarks, even though he made an extremely powerful and dramatic speech in which he repeatedly confronted the ambassador from Russia. Instead, Ingraham went back to Putin toady Trump for his reaction to Kyslytsya “looking like a defeated man” and Ukraine’s President President Volodymyr Zelensky sounding “pathetic” in an earlier speech.
Unfortunately for Ingraham, her favorite p***y grabber came off looking pathetic. Trump started whining that Ingraham should not have revealed the “American” amphibious attack off Odessa, that it should have remained secret. “No, those are the Russians,” Ingraham corrected.
My Crooks and Liars colleague, Susan Madrak, reminds us of some of the ways that Trump helped to create the tragedy in Ukraine. All of which Fox will dutifully help to bury and rewrite as everything bad that happens in this war will surely be blamed on Biden.
You know that Fox knows Trump made an idiot of himself because no part of his interview made it into their video highlights of the show.
You can watch Trump’s pathetic remarks below, from the February 23, 2022 The Ingraham Angle, via Justin Baragona and Crooks and Liars.
Here's Donald Trump on Fox News saying Russia's invasion of Ukraine "all happened because of a rigged election."
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 24, 2022
Laura Ingraham then briefly cuts him off to air the Ukrainian envoy's speech. (Of course, she then pulled out of the speech to go back to Trump.) pic.twitter.com/7ZfSp7icQ1
To my mind, Biden is acting responsibly and – more importantly yet – in close collaboration with America’s allies. All the pundits (even those on Fox) agree that Russia is isolated on the world stage: major sporting events (football !!!!) have been cancelled or relocated; Eurovision is not accepting contestants from Russia and the OECD has put Russia’s application for membership on the back burner; … shucks, even China abstained from voting on the resolution at the UN instead of vetoing it alongside Russia (that must have burned).
Here’s hoping that Russia’s military realise that this anachronistic war cannot be won with conventional weapons and – even more importantly – that using nuclear bombs is not a viable option.