Trump didn’t want an investigation, he wanted an “investigation”
I’m rather discouraged by the fact that so many people seem to accept at face value that Trump wanted the Ukraine to investigate Biden. That’s not at all what Trump wanted. An investigation would have lasted for 5 minutes, and found nothing worth pursuing. (Even if Biden were guilty, the Ukrainians would have had no way of knowing this.)
Thump didn’t want the Ukrainians to investigate Biden; he wanted an ongoing Ukrainian “investigation” of Biden. And today he succeeded. The Ukrainian government announced it will conduct an “investigation” of Hunter Biden’s firm. The whole point of the exercise is not to get at the truth, rather it is a smear campaign designed to drag Joe Biden’s name through the mud. Most likely, Democratic voters will take the bait and replace a guy who polls show can beat Trump with an alternative candidate who cannot.
We’ve seen this before. Does anyone seriously believe that Trump thought Obama was not born in America? The whole point of the birther conspiracy was not to get at the truth; rather it was to muddy the waters. The point is not to investigate; it’s to have a sham “investigation”. You don’t have real investigations when there is zero evidence that there is anything to investigate, rather you have actual investigations when there is evidence of wrongdoing, of something to investigate.
Tyler Cowen links to a Robert Kagan essay than makes the following observation:
Consider what it will mean if we decide that what Trump and Giuliani have already acknowledged doing in Ukraine becomes an acceptable practice for all future presidents. Sending the signal that other governments can curry favor with a U.S. president by helping to dig up dirt on his or her political opponents would open our political system and foreign policy to intervention and manipulation on a global scale. Every government in the world wishing to influence U.S. foreign policy will have an incentive to come to a sitting president with information on his or her potential political opponents.
That information might be related to investments or other financial dealings in a particular country, as in Ukraine. Or it might have to do with the behavior of a particular individual while traveling abroad — who he or she sees and what he or she does. Other governments will therefore have an incentive to conduct surveillance of political figures traveling through their countries on the off chance of gleaning some bit of information that could be traded in Washington for some favor. Nor would other governments be limited to what they can see in their own countries. They would have an incentive to dig into the lives of potential opposition politicians in the United States, through monitoring their social media and other Internet presences, their bank accounts and other personal information — as already happened in 2016, and which Trump openly welcomed then, too.
I actually don’t have any problem with foreign governments bringing to our attention the fact that certain Americans are engaged in corrupt activity. But this case is very different. Here the President is using US foreign policy (withholding military aid) to pressure the Ukraine to do a smear campaign on Biden. They don’t even want a true investigation, as it would almost immediately clear Biden. They want an ongoing “investigation.”
Tyler Cowen responds to Kagan:
I mostly agree, but wonder if foreign governments haven’t already been doing this for some time, but hoarding the information rather than releasing it to select American politicians (no reason to encourage them further, of course).”
Here Tyler conflates “doing this” with actual investigations conducted by foreign governments into US political corruption. I don’t know if foreign governments have been doing the “this” that Tyler suggests they may be doing (arguably a legitimate activity), but they almost certainly have not been doing the “this” that Trump is actually encouraging them to do—smear his political opponents by having a fake investigation drag out into an election year. How do I know? Because the whole point of a sham investigation is that it is public. That’s why Giuliani wanted the Ukrainians to sign a statement saying they were investigating Biden.
On the other hand, foreign governments have been doing something that is closely related to Trump’s request, as when the Russians used the internet to peddle conspiracy theories regarding Hillary Clinton. What Trump is calling for is not exactly the same, but it’s morally equivalent.
PS. I have much more controversial things that I could say, but I will reserve those comments for phone communications, not text.
[9/1/19, 12:08:57 PM] Bill Taylor: Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?
[9/1/19, 12:42:29 PM] Gordon Sondland: Call me
Call me? Like the Blondie hit. LOL.
Do I really need to connect the dots for you guys?
Tags:
4. October 2019 at 12:43
Scott: It really doesn’t matter. Trump won in 2016 despite being very corrupt and a liar on many issues. He won because he was willing to talk about issues that you cannot talk about in ordinary society, but still have great impact on our daily lives. The relationship is backward, people didn’t vote for him because they thought he was clean, but people who voted for him convinced themselves that they thought he was clean.
You know this, having blogged about the guy for 5(?) years now, and you understood this back in 2016, after he won.
My guess is the hysteria on Trump’s scandals like this is so people don’t have to face the Trumpian logic on things like foreign policy, immigration, crime, etc. The Republican reaction to Obama dismantaling Bush’s stupidity on Iraq was the same. They couldn’t argue against him on the disaster that was Iraq, so they made BS about Birtherism and Tan Suits. The whole Michelle is a secret guy thing was probably a reaction to a scandalfree marriage.
If you wanna beat Trump, prove him wrong on things like immigration, crime. Prove that the crime fear in America is overblown, or is going away.
Just like how you, and the broader community, beat him on Trade, by arguing your points and shifting public opinion. This stuff by itself just isn’t going to hurt him.
4. October 2019 at 13:19
The dots are all there. They scare me. Especially because many can’t connect them or do connect them and LIKE what they see.
4. October 2019 at 13:26
Do you need to connect the dots?
No, not for anybody with at least a rudimentary brain stem. It couldn’t be clearer.
4. October 2019 at 14:08
What would you folks be saying if Trump’s son was being paid nicely to be on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and then Trump forced the Ukrainians to fire a Ukrainian person who was investigating said gas company?
4. October 2019 at 14:54
Scott,
I don’t think this is Biden’s biggest problem. His biggest problem is his old approach to politics, particularly, fundraising. I assume you noticed he was recently way out-raised by both Sanders and Warren, both of whom seem to understand that it’s been more efficient to raise money from small donors for years. This is not only true from the perspective of simple dollars and cents, but also in terms of political image. American voters see raising money from big donors as being corrupt, and it’s one among many reasons for the populist turn the country has taken.
I’d rather have Biden than Warren or Sanders, but Biden just doesn’t seem to get it. He’s still practicing the politics of the 90s, and his debate performances are so bad, he even made me wonder if he’d slipped too much mentally to be President. As I pointed out, having seen him in other settings, he can still be quite sharp, but he needs to change his approach to campaigning, if it’s not too late.
Sanders and Warren are good, intelligent, and earnest people, but their ideas are so misguided… I can only vote for one of them if running against Trump. That choice is easy.
I hope Buttigieg can overcome thise police scandals in South Bend, assuming he deserves to overcome them. I haven’t looked into it closely. I just hope someone like him can take the torch from Biden if the latter fails, as it appears he is.
4. October 2019 at 15:12
John, You said:
“If you wanna beat Trump,”
I don’t think you understand the purpose of this blog. I don’t write posts to “beat Trump”; my posts won’t change a single vote. I write posts because I enjoy mocking Trump.
Bob, You said:
“What would you folks be saying if Trump’s son was being paid nicely to be on the board of a Ukrainian gas company and then Trump forced the Ukrainians to fire a Ukrainian person who was investigating said gas company?”
LOL at people who swallow Trump’s lies. Nothing of the sort happened. Try reading the mainstream media just once, not loony alt-right websites.
Mike, You said:
“he even made me wonder if he’d slipped too much mentally to be President.”
Slipped?!? He’s always been this way. The point is to beat Trump. Whether he’d be a good president is immaterial.
Sanders is likely done. Warren seems to be in the lead right now.
4. October 2019 at 15:38
“…Try reading the mainstream media just once, not loony alt-right websites.”
Mostly I read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and listen to C-Span. I read The New York Times and Washington Post if they have unbiased reporting but this is rare.
I consider the Wall Street Journal to be the Gold Standard and read it on my Nook every morning. (alt-right?)
I also view Fox but I often have to turn it off when they go into their loony rages. They do sometimes have good guests. (I was surprised when Hannity had Bill Deblasio on and Bill was much more persuasive than Hannity.)
4. October 2019 at 15:57
Scott: With all due respect Scott, I don’t think you are “mocking”, but you are seething. That was the point of my post, when you disagree with the ideological underpinnings of some politico, you hyper-fixate on their behavior. Everybody(including me!) does this. Just look at VDare when Obama was president, and how they analyzed any word he said for hints of “anti-White” beliefs. Steve Sailer essentially spent 8 years going full mad-ho. Since you rarely change minds doing this, the power of the politican stays, and you get trapped in a cycle of perpetual seething.
Of course, you never say that you are seething, but are “mocking”, like you are above the fray. But Scott, writing relentlessly about Trump for 5 years is the definition of seething, even if you claim you are “mocking”. You obviously want to change minds, that’s why you post, just as we commentators post, hoping to change yours.
Here’s a good example. Obama admin and Hillary Clinton’s botched Libya policy led to the reawakening of the modern day slave market in Africa, as people used Libya’s lawlessness as a focal point for trade of enslaved girls an boys. For the first time in a half-century, slavery in Africa started rising in the world instead of falling. In terms of utility, this was a far worse thing than anything Trump will ever do, yet you wanted(want) Clinton and Biden to be president during 2016 and 2020. You hyper-fixate on Trump, just as I hyper-fixate on the Squad- we are both seething.
4. October 2019 at 16:23
@John A.: Libya was a major screw up (they could have let Qaddafi stay, he had stopped being the terror-funding tyrant he was in the 80s), as was Bush II’s Iraq war (which had FAR worse consequences).
What does that have to do with Trump being a terrible, idiotic, childish human being who should have no business in the Oval Office? He deserves every inch of ridicule and contempt he gets, and to be honest he probably likes it.
4. October 2019 at 16:32
>LOL at people who swallow Trump’s lies. Nothing of the sort happened.
Investigation notwithstanding, it is a fact that Hunter Biden, whose chief calling was *lobbyist*, was paid $600,000 a year for twice-a-year board meetings for Ukraine’s largest natural gas producer. After a cursory review of his background, the only attribute of note about this guy is that his dad was the Vice President. Best-case scenario, it’s an embarrassment for the Bidens. Worst-case, it’s an attempt for a foreign oligarch to purchase influence at the highest echelon of the US government.
4. October 2019 at 17:12
Trump is great entertainment value. I still cannot decide if he is any better or worse than the voters option, which is the establishment GOP or the Donks.
I assume most of what Trump is doing in Ukraine would have been done by other presidents but far more cleverly. In fact, I cannot really tell the difference between what Trump is doing and what Biden did as vice president.
Was not Manafort extracting money out of Ukraine also?
And egads, Robert Kagan needs to go on a long vacation. Join John Bolton wherever he is.
4. October 2019 at 17:35
Wikipedia
In 2008, Kagan wrote an article titled “Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism, c. 1776” for World Affairs, describing the main components of American neoconservatism as a belief in the rectitude of applying US moralism to the world stage, support for the US to act alone, the promotion of American-style liberty and democracy in other countries, the belief in American hegemony,[30] the confidence in US military power, and a distrust of international institutions.[31] According to Kagan, his foreign-policy views are “deeply rooted in American history and widely shared by Americans”.[32]
In 2006, Kagan wrote that Russia and China are the greatest “challenge liberalism faces today”: “Nor do Russia and China welcome the liberal West’s efforts to promote liberal politics around the globe, least of all in regions of strategic importance to them. … Unfortunately, al-Qaeda may not be the only challenge liberalism faces today, or even the greatest.”[33][34] In a February 2017 essay for Foreign Policy, Kagan argued that U.S. post-Cold War retrenchment in global affairs has emboldened Russia and China, “the two great revisionist powers,” and will eventually lead to instability and conflict.[35]
—30—
In other words, permawars and perma-entanglements for the USA, at fantastic expense, and a self-righteous military-intelligence complex with unlimited surveillance apparatus.
Next to Kagan, Trump looks almost benign.
4. October 2019 at 17:42
@Ben Cole: Kagan isnt POTUS, Trump is. As POTUS, he’s hardly “benign”.
4. October 2019 at 18:09
Scott,
Yes, Biden’s always been gaffe-prone, but when I reference slipping, I mean him seeming to have literal senior moments on stage, making me wonder if he has the faculties to be President. Mumbling about poor children listening to record players at night? It was almost jibberish.
Those concerns have been somewhat laid to rest. Of course, I’d vote for a comatose Biden over Trump, but the point is that Buttigieg or Booker might be better-suited to carry the centrist torch if Biden fails.
Buttigieg seems extremely bright and articulate, and has a good resume in many ways, except he’s pretty inexperienced for a Presidential candidate.
4. October 2019 at 18:17
I don’t understand how it isn’t obvious at this point(or at any point) that Trump has publicly incriminated himself with regard to felonius behavior several times. It was all recorded live. His senile/idiotic lawyer Giuliani has done likewise. There are no alternative explanations.
4. October 2019 at 18:22
Scott,
Forgot to mention that while it seems unlikely Sanders will win the nomination, he might last longer than Biden merely due to his fundraising.
4. October 2019 at 18:27
msgkings:
Let me put it this way.
Kagan has a position at Brookings, writes regular columns for Washington Post, has held senior policy positions in government–in short, he is a pillar of the DC globalist establishment, is well regarded and obviously highly intelligent. He openly advocates for “interventionism” and is accepted for it, and even embraced for it.
Trump is not an interventionist, and has muddy views on everything, including foreign policy. Trump is not a deep thinker.
To me, Kagan and his crowd are more dangerous than Trump. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and constant semi-entanglements everywhere else from Libya, to Syria, to Venezuela, to Cuba, to Korea, to Nicaragua, to Iran and so on.
John Bolton recently said we should militarily seek regime change in North Korea.
The US will spend $12 trillion in the next 10 years on global security (DoD, VA, black budget, prorated interest on the national debt). Well, unless we get in another war, in which case that number could double or so.
And yet, I cannot shake suspicions that US foreign, military and trade policy is just the US uniformed services as global guard service for multi-nationals. (It is interesting to ponder a man named Smedley Butler, and his thoughts, in present context).
One of the last communist nations on earth is China, and becoming more so, btw. But after decades of being told we must fight communism, after Beijing gave the multi-nationals a manufacturing platform in China, the anti-commie talk died down. In fact, Beijing is not really communist, we are told by some. Yes!
The day Beijing expropriates some factories, they again will be labelled devil-commies from hell. They can incarcerate the 1.5 million Uighers, and Apple still makes iPhones in China.
Trump v. Kagan? I take Trump, with many reservations.
I wish I could vote for an intelligent non-interventionist, and if you have one, let me know.
Trump is also right on monetary policy and immigration policy (the latter horribly expressed and possibly for the wrong reasons).
4. October 2019 at 19:02
> Do I really need to connect the dots for you guys?
Actually you do Scott as I’m still not sure what your specific claim/concern is here outside “Trump!! Orange man bad!!”.
Are you asserting the Constitution prohibits the President from making personal requests of foreign leaders? Would you like to point out a single President that HASN’T did that? Or are you advocating here that we should make that an ex post facto felony with the Congressional Sergeant-at-Arms acting as it’s executor (not sure where the Constitution allows for that but OK) and equally we should dig up the corpses of all previous presidents and sentence their souls along with the living ex-presidents?
Spell it out please because I’m genuinely lost on your new found interest in Presidential use of power for personal reasons.
4. October 2019 at 19:29
@msgkings: Libya was signed off by Clinton and Obama, and France couldn’t have done anything without their tacit approval. Mea Culpa though, Biden opposed the intervention, so he would make a great president, lets hope he wins.
Trump is a buffoon, but he won’t do anything as bad as Libya, so that makes all his points better than the worst point of the Obama administration. I actually am optimistic in this regard, as Obama never had a point worse than Bush’s Iraq War, so maybe incremental improvement is our future.
4. October 2019 at 19:35
@msgkings: Yeah Trump is a clown, and he looks like he is suffering from cognitive defect. Just gets a little old, Drumph stupid has been the phrase for quite a while- admittedly, he does continue to suprise us in his silliness. I think Biden would make a great president, so I am not really happy with this development.
4. October 2019 at 19:37
@msgkingsIf we have to have a Dem President, Biden would make a good choice, so he is great in that relative sense
4. October 2019 at 20:07
Inauguration Day:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/20/the-campaign-to-impeach-president-trump-has-begun/
4. October 2019 at 20:24
Democrats have had a three year “impeachment”. The still haven’t decided on impeachment.
4. October 2019 at 20:33
“Here the President is using US foreign policy (withholding military aid) to pressure the Ukraine to do a smear campaign on Biden.”
This didn’t happen. Biden forcing the ouster of a prosecutor investigating the company his son was on the board on really did happen, though.
“They don’t even want a true investigation, as it would almost immediately clear Biden.”
No.
“On the other hand, foreign governments have been doing something that is closely related to Trump’s request, as when the Russians used the internet to peddle conspiracy theories regarding Hillary Clinton.”
I don’t trust known liars. The MSM is lying about the Biden matter, simple as that. Not sure why you trust them. Read this, Sumner:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/10/biden-timeline.html#more
Now, I am in no way defending Trump here, but quit being a fucking moron.
4. October 2019 at 20:36
Sumner, you are a thoroughly dishonest individual. When I get something wrong, I apologize. When you get something wrong, you double down or ignore it.
5. October 2019 at 09:27
Bob, You said:
“Mostly I read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal”
Their news pages are 10 times less biased. Skip the editorial page.
John, Your Obama/Libya example is a perfect example of “motivated reasoning”. It’s hard to even talk to someone who goes so out of their way to defend Trump. Does he have to shoot someone in the middle of Times Square before you’ll understand how deranged he is?
As far as changing minds, do you really think I’m that stupid? Do you truly believe that these are the sorts of posts I’d write if I wanted to change minds?
When I want to change minds, I write on monetary policy.
BTW, unlike most commenters here I don’t care all that much about politics. I’m not in either tribe, rooting for my team to win. But I do find it very amusing, at the moment.
And it’s silly to claim that Obama started the Libyan war, or caused the slavery.
Christian, You said:
“Worst-case, it’s an attempt for a foreign oligarch to purchase influence at the highest echelon of the US government.”
I totally believe the worst case is true. But why should I care, given that they failed? OK, if I were Ukrainian I might care. But there are so many problems in the world, why should I as an American care all that much? They spent some money of Hunter, and failed to get the influence they wanted.
Michael, I’d gladly support Buttigieg over Trump, and over Warren, Sanders, etc. And I agree he’d be a better president than Biden.
Peter, You said:
“Are you asserting the Constitution prohibits the President from making personal requests of foreign leaders?”
Well I guess I do need to connect the dots. It’s not OK for a President to withhold military aid in order to get a foreign country to put out dirt on his political rival. I sort of thought people knew that. I guess not.
You said:
“Spell it out please because I’m genuinely lost on your new found interest in Presidential use of power for personal reasons.”
I see you are new here. I’ve been railing against excessive use of presidential power for all sorts of reasons for 10 years at this blog and Econlog. Google one of my posts on bullying.
Steve, I saw early on that Trump needed to be ousted, and now it’s plain as day to everyone who isn’t an ostrich that I was right all along. Rubio is actually defending him by claiming it was all a Trump joke. The GOP is so confused they don’t even know what to say in his defense.
Harding, You said:
“This didn’t happen. Biden forcing the ouster of a prosecutor investigating the company his son was on the board on really did happen, though.”
Not surprised that you believe nonsense like this. All the GOP senators who demanded he be ousted and all the European governments who demanded he be ousted were all trying to protect Biden’s son from an investigation that was not even happening? Even by your standards this is silly.
5. October 2019 at 10:41
Scott: Uh, Obama and Clinton gave a greenlight to French interference and gave weapons and money to the people who killed the Libyian dictator, a man despite all his flaws, had stopped the slave trade and the migrant crisis. Bush and Obama both thought that despite the fact that people of Libya, Iraq, and Syria hated each other, they could somehow do democracy with each other. That thinking is far more deranged than anything Trump has, and will ever do.
Just ask the Christians in Syria whether they like Trump’s “deranged” pro-Assad beliefs vs Obama’s pro-rebel beliefs. You could ask the Christians in Iraq how the more “rational” pre-Trumpian leaders fared, but you would have a hard time concering their numbers dropping some 95%.
You and I have a fundamentally different way of looking at Trump. You belief that Trump’s old senile, screwed up mind is a danger to the world. I am more worried about well-intentioned, intelligent people with a flawed understanding of the world getting power, and then acting on that power and not course-correcting if they are wrong.
Trump is weak, lazy, and stupid, so if some indicator tells him to stop doing what he is doing, then he will stop. Right or wrong, he wont push the needle to far, and given the power of the US government, that is unquestionably a good thing.
5. October 2019 at 12:21
Quit lying, Sumner. What the fuck is this, then?
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/322395.html
See; you never admit your errors/lies. I always admit my errors.
And yes, corrupt politicians always stand by each other, that’s why Rs complain about “Russian interference” (supposedly) against Hillary Clinton.
He’d be godawful. Warren, Beto, or Sanders would be the best president.
Again, this didn’t happen.
Lie.
5. October 2019 at 12:21
@Scott: Nah I’ve actually read you all that time (your posts on EconLog are what brought me here all that time ago) and I once considered you one of more vocal and respected living libertarian thinkers but what I’ve discovered, as with most of the GMU folk, Reason, Cato, etc is you all were all just crypto-Conservatives at best, Crypto-Progressives at worse, and it took the election of Trump to bring that openly out in you; i.e. that whole revealed preferences thing. You may have “attacked” previous presidents but not to this level of virtuality and at least with previous presidents you generally attempted to have some sort of veneer of rationality or intellectually honesty and it was generally more on the “institution of the Presidency” as opposed to the officer holder in a personal capacity. THAT is the difference and THAT is why you, Volkoh (just seen him whining about getting called out too), etc are open to the accurate label of TDS.
> It’s not OK for a President to withhold military aid in order to get a foreign country to put out dirt on his political rival
I’m waiting on your libertarian logic behind that or hell, even why it’s OK as long as it’s civilian aid or ones non-political rivals. Every President in living member has used the office for personal reasons and gotten foreign nations to act in ways to further THEIR political career … really your only complaint here once again seems to be “Trump!!!!” or, even worse, “against a domestic political elite!!” because you know I don’t hear you railing weekly against his personal use of presidential power against his domestic non-rivals or foreigners he has a distaste for. Nah only Trump is evil when doing what all his predecessors do because had the gall, the GALL, to direct it not only against the helpless.
US Presidents as a fact of reality always ask foreign nations for personal political favors to help them domestically and that “asking” always comes with strings and pressure. Quit deluding yourself thinking this is just Trump.
5. October 2019 at 12:23
Prediction: Scott Sumner will be highly enthusiastic about the Warren presidency, and will never criticize her like he will Trump, despite Warren getting far less media criticism.
5. October 2019 at 12:25
@John Arthur
Quit defending Trump. Trump does not have “pro-Assad beliefs”; he supports al-Qaeda in Syria. He did improve the position of the Syrian government to some extent, but not nearly enough. He also enthusiastically supported the Libya intervention when it first happened. Trump is a Monday morning quarterback; an all-talk, no action politician.
6. October 2019 at 05:18
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/10/05/nancy-pelosi-is-grubering-the-american-electorate-on-impeachment-committee-requests-aka-subpoenas-constructed-to-manufacture-obstruction/
LOL
7. October 2019 at 07:06
I’m sad, tho not too surprised, that Scott continues to wallow in his Trump Derangement Syndrome. Lots of ad-hoc insults, little analysis of actions and results.
Plus intellectual dishonesty. All smart people know how to lie to themselves, me too I’m sure. But saying Trump is terrible is much weaker than saying Trump did this terrible action, like bombing Libya, and produced terrible results, like the resumption of slavery. Of course, it was Obama and your alternate to Trump Hillary that did do the bombing; and the results ARE the resumption of slavery. Your analysis? Silly to talk about it.
Words – Actions – Results. From gov’t, I’m looking for good results, like low unemployment, low regulations, low military adventurism, low crime, low illegal aliens; higher investment in America. Trump’s results are far, far better than I was expecting when I, a NeverHillary voter, voted for him.
Your dishonest becomes clear when you claim to be against an action to “smear his political opponents by having a fake investigation drag out into an election year.”
In fact, the Clinton Russian Hoax very much a smear of her political opponent Trump to lead to a fake investigation in an election year.
On the details of the corrupt Burisma oligarch controlled Ukranian gas company — why exactly is Hunter Biden getting $600,000/year?
a) It’s a bribe.
b) His expertise is so valuable, despite having none.
Yeah, the prosecutor was NOT investigating, was likely corrupt, and was fired. On the day that VP Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 bln in aid if he wasn’t fired. Which Biden (stupidly) bragged about in public video. For you, since he was VP not Pres, that’s OK? For you, since it was aid, not “military aid”, that’s OK?
If it’s not OK, you need to spend more time complaining about the actual actions and results of non-Trump gov’t that are not OK, if you want any open-minded person to take your critiques of Trump seriously.
I haven’t been here much since TDS has taken such strong hold, and I’m unlikely to come here much again until others, more intellectually honest, link here on a good note.
So sad that Trump wants lower interest rates (& higher inflation?), which Scott claims to be calling for, too. So I was wondering if there’d be a good post about why “Trump is right on interest rates”. But no.