What Trump has done for Putin in just 43 days

With all of the daily outrages coming from the White House, it is important every now and then to step back and take a look at the big picture. Here's what Trump has done for Putin in his first 43 days:

February 14th - Trump administration made it easier for Russia to interfere in our elections.

February 14th - Vance told European countries that the real threat isn't Russia, but their own attempts to disrupt misinformation.

February 18th - Trump repeated Kremlin talking points - blaming Ukraine for starting the war. 

February 19th - Trump repeated Kremlin talking points - calling Zelensky a "dictator."

February 24th - U.S. voted against a UN resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war.

February 28th - Trump and Vance attacked Zelensky during their meeting in the Oval Office, leading to this tweet from the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia.

March 2nd - Trump administration ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive cyber operations and information operations against Russia.

March 3rd - Trump administration is planning to give Russia relief from sanctions imposed as a result of their invasion of Ukraine.

March 3rd - Trump halts all military aid to Ukraine.

Of course, none of that includes all of the things that the Trump administration is doing that has Putin applauding - like shutting down USAID, alienating all of our foreign allies, and basically destroying the federal government. 

Is it any wonder, then, that the Kremlin spokesperson said that "The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”

After Trump's first term in office, it became increasingly difficult to dismiss the idea that the President of the United States was acting as an asset of the Kremlin. Forty-three days into his second term, he's wiping out all doubt.

At least one conservative British politician is saying the quiet part out loud.

With the Republican plan to increase the deficit by $4.5 trillion, they need a new argument to go after entitlements

For decades now, Republicans have demonstrated that one of their main goals has been to eliminate the social safety net. While they've used various arguments, the one they've depended on the most is to claim that we can't afford it by pointing to the federal deficit. 

But that argument is increasingly hard to make when the House budget proposal includes a $4.5 trillion addition to the deficit from tax cuts aimed primarily at the wealthy. So Republicans find themselves having to pivot to a new argument for doing away with the social safety net - especially when it comes to programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. 

It is becoming increasingly clear that the new argument is that these programs are infected with waste, fraud and abuse. As I noted previously, that is the lie Speaker Johnson is spreading about Medicaid. On Sunday, he said the same thing about Social Security.

Mike Johnson on Elon Musk: "We meet late into the night in his office and we've looked at that. What he's finding with his algorithms crawling through the data of Social Security system is enormous amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 2, 2025 at 11:54 AM

Of course, Johnson didn't provide any evidence for "enormous amounts of fraud, waste, and abuse" in the Social Security system. And when Welker pointed out that the Social Security administration's internal watchdog found that less than 1 percent of benefit payments were improper, Johnson responded by simply saying "Don't believe it."

Call me crazy, but if Musk and Johnson want to use that chainsaw to go after Social Security, they're going to have to provide some actual evidence of fraud, waste, and abuse. We now know that their claims about millions of dead people getting Social Security checks was a lie. 

Overall, when it comes to Musk's claims of fraud, here's a good tracker:

To demonstrate how twisted this has all become, Musk recently told Joe Rogan that "entitlements fraud for illegal aliens is what is serving as a gigantic magnetic force to pull people in from all around the world and keep them here." Of course, that's all a lie. But Musk used it as a way to pivot to the great replacement theory, suggesting that Democrats are using entitlement fraud to "buy voters."

The bottom line is that, whether they're pearl-clutching about the deficit, lying about fraud, or blaming immigrants, the point of all of this is to dismantle programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. That's the end game. They know that these programs are not only popular, they are a lifeline for millions of Americans. So they keep searching for a convincing lie to justify their destruction. 

Vance is the one who staged the attack on Zelensky

The overall takeaway from Zelensky's meeting with Trump on Friday was perhaps best captured in an editorial from Kyiv Independent titled "A president just disrespected America in the Oval Office. It wasn't Zelensky." The opening line says it all: "It’s time to say it plainly. America’s leadership has switched sides in the war." As David Frum said, "It exposed in the most undeniable, unequivocal way possible the pro-Putin commitments of the president and vice president." We now live in a country where the leadership supports Russia over Ukraine.

In order to understand the context of what happened, I decided that it would be helpful to watch the entire meeting. It lasted about 50 minutes, with all of the social media clips coming during the last 10 minutes. The first 40 minutes were fairly amiable. While Trump emphasized that the deal he wanted to sign would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's rare earth minerals, Zelensky pointed to three things Ukraine wanted in exchange:

1. On-going air defense systems
2. Security guarantees
3. A return of the Ukrainian children that Russia has abducted

It is important to realize that the second point is something he has emphasized from the beginning. Here's how it was framed three weeks ago:

The U.S. president, whose administration is pressing for a rapid end to Ukraine's war with Russia, said on Monday he wanted Ukraine to supply the U.S. with rare earths and other minerals in return for financially supporting its war effort.

"If we are talking about a deal, then let's do a deal, we are only for it," Zelenskiy said, emphasizing Ukraine's need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement... 

Ukraine has rapidly retuned its foreign policy approach to align with the transactional world view set out by the new occupant of the White House, Ukraine's most important ally.

In other words, Zelensky was smart enough to put these mineral rights on the table - knowing that it is exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to Trump. But he wanted something in return - security guarantees.

After about 40 unremarkable minutes of the meeting on Friday, Trump indicated that they would take one last question from the media. That's when Vance interrupted to say that for four years Biden talked tough about Putin, who then invaded Ukraine - implying that Russia's invasion was Biden's fault. The vice president went on to suggest that it was time for diplomacy. 

Zelensky responded by asking Vance, "what kind of diplomacy?" He pointed out that Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. After being elected president in 2019, Zelensky engaged directly with Putin in diplomacy and reached a cease fire agreement - which Russia failed to honor. That is why Zelensky is so adamant about including security guarantees as part of any cease fire deal. 

Vance went on the attack against Zelensky - and was eventually joined by Trump. 

.@VP: "Do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?"@POTUS: "You don't have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards ... You're… pic.twitter.com/iTYyAmfuCJ

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 28, 2025

After spouting Russian propaganda, Vance accused Zelensky of coming into the oval office and attacking the Trump administration. Nowhere during the entire exchange had Zelensky done that. But it was enough to enrage Trump - who has no love lost for Zelensky.

The rest of the discussion was basically Trump and Vance demanding that Zelensky submit to their dominance ("you don't have the cards right now") and be grateful ("have you said 'thank you' once today?"). Anyone who has ever lived with an abusive spouse will recognize those kinds of messages as threats.

A lot of people I admire are suggesting that this whole thing was choreographed to give Trump a reason to end all U.S. support for Ukraine. They might be right, but I'm a bit skeptical for a couple of reasons.

The first is that, if you watch the first 40 minutes of the meeting, you'll see Trump practically salivating at the prospect of getting control of those rare earth minerals. In addition, the president praised himself over and over again for being the great peacemaker who was going to bring an end to the war. But all of that is now off the table.  

The one who seemed to have planned an attack is Vance. It came out of nowhere and was particularly vicious. It was also calibrated to raise Trump's hackles and get him engaged  - which is, of course - easy to do.

It could be that Trump directed Vance to upend the entire deal. But I don't give the president that much credit. My take leans more in the direction of thinking that it was Vance who staged the whole thing himself. To be honest, I don't really know why. Perhaps, as James Landale suggests, he's "developing a role as a political brawler for Trump," specializing in going after our allies - as he did in Munich. 

But I also suspect that Vance is aware of the fact that a shinny object like mineral rights is exactly the kind of thing that could distract Trump from the goal of upending the entire global order. The vice president just made sure that won't happen.