It was great seeing Kamala get under his skin. The reaction cams were really fun seeing Kamala react like a normal human to his insane rantings and him just smoldering and getting angrier and angrier when she hit back
But it was so crazy that it was incredibly funny. I was doing paraphrases of a lot of his responses in the pinned debate thread in c/news if you're curious.
I was looking forward to what he was going to say about why he blocked the border bill. As expected, he chose to immediately talk about something else.
In which case, Trump touted it because either a) they honestly think it is good propaganda which will sway the campaign, or b) Trump is quite literally eating his own dog food, because there are too many lies to keep track of.
This gets me - if he's that fucking clever then he should have ended it by now. And he says he's good friends with Zelensky, how? Do they go out drinking together? They've probably spoken twice. America should be ashamed of Trump the Liar.
Their line isn't that Ukraine should lose, it's that America shouldn't give them money while homeless vets, Ukraine is corrupt, biden crime family, nato expansion, etc. Which coincidentally are all Russian talking points.
I remember when Russia did go in, briefly Fox News was full of editorializing that Russia should get to have Ukraine. They at least tried to got full on pro-Russia when they thought the narrative might fly and Ukraine was going to just get conquered in a week or so. Clearly they were trying to set things up for blithe acceptance for what Russia had done and for the world to move on (until next time).
I think that between the prolonged conflict and the fact that their boomer audience actually may still be inclined to remember their cold war feelings that this won't fly, that they backed off to less aggressively calling for complete Russian victory. But as seen here, there's still a theme of making it clear that you're ok with whatever outcome, leaning toward "but should we spend our money?" to undermine things rather than calling for a pro-russia outcome outright.
I wonder if a big part of the reason is just the whole phone call about Biden and subsequent impeachment, and how Zelenskyy wouldn’t play ball and the whole thing damaged Trump’s ego in a big way. So even if it’s politically advantageous in every way to say you want Ukraine to win, Trump is incapable of doing so.
I dunno, I just read an article about that country's political debate from last night and it didn't mention this point, it was mostly discussing how angry that bloke got at the other politician and how overall it seems like it was a bad night for him and a good night for her.
The specifics were a bit overshadowed by the perceived importance of the event and it's outcome itself, I think.
I'm sure in the coming days some more details will flow out of the USA and we'll hear some discussion of specifics where they concern us, like their politician's stances on the war in Europe, I agree. I've just not seen it mentioned just yet is all.
But it's only 7am and I think the debate was in the middle of the night, so I shouldn't expect much yet haha :-D
But Kamala Harris should have poited that out and reminded everyone that Trump wouldn't answer. Then it would be her jabbing him instead of some talking head no one knows letting it pass. Missed opportunity.
It will not put off his voters. Some of them just don't care about anything international. Others admire Putin as a strongman who isn't afraid to kill his enemies and persecute minorities, a moral conservative, a self-professed Christian, an ally against democracy and a defender of the same bigotries they share.
I feel like when Harris said that Putin would be sitting in Kyiv, Trump didn't understand. "Why would he be in Kyiv, Putin would be at home, happier of course" because he's taking it literally like a fucking idiot.
And yes, Trump, of course Putin would be happier with you in charge when he invaded. The Biden administration gave crucial Intel in the months leading up to the invasion and military support. Harris 100% deserves props for being involved in that.
He also still refused to admit he lost four years ago, and admit any fault or regret for Jan 6th. And he showed zero remorse or awareness about the Central Park Five. Pure deflection for every single question.
Ukraine was a massive fuck up for Putin. He believes in the bullshit known as color revolution.
So he thought he'd pull one in Ukraine. A few years of some soldiers fucking around in the East, then he'd walk in and be welcomed.
Which is fucking stupid.
But Putin has long since killed anyone who would tell him that an idea is stupid, or that people don't work the way a paranoid, backstabbing KGB trained psychopath thinks they do.
No, Putin fucked up hard due to the dictator trap.
Now he's scrambling. He's been killing off rivals and opponents at a breakneck pace the last few years, all because his position has never been weaker.
And he barely managed to diffuse a coup attempt.
He had to use treachery to do it, so the next time, the coup leader will not back down.
No, Putin is desperate to pull out some sort of win in Ukraine, because anything else is the end of his rule, and likely his life.
I don't know why he can't say Russia. It's the obvious truth, his swallowers - sorry, his followers - would lap it up no matter what, and it's no more or less insane than anything else he says.
That's what annoys me the most. Tankies will go defend Russia like it's the promised land of communism, when the only remnant of communism it has is rigged elections and propaganda.
Not only this, but they rephrased the question asking if he thought it would be in America's best interest to win the war and he declined to answer again...
I found it interesting that Trump claims if he wins the election, he'll have the Russia / Ukraine conflict resolved BEFORE he even takes office. I'm paraphrasing there, but that's how I interpreted what he stated.
If that's the case, then it seems like he could choose to end the conflict at any time. Why doesn't he just end it now? Save countless lives. Minimize injuries. Prevent suffering. Save money. I'm sure that'd change some voters' minds if he did it. Might even win him the election.
Yes, this is a rhetorical question. I have no doubt that he can't actually end it without basically giving in entirely to Russia.
It is a confusing statement. I understood it to be basically that once he is guaranteed to be president, Putin will know his man on the inside will be in charge, and Putin can end the war/negotiate for favorable terms with the US as enforcer.
Trump can't end it before the election, because there's no guarantee he'll win.
Trump thinks that makes him a brilliant negotiator, instead of what he really is which is a stooge that can be played like a fiddle.
I found it interesting that Trump claims if he wins the election, he’ll have the Russia / Ukraine conflict resolved BEFORE he even takes office.
He's invoking the Iran Hostage Crisis, I think. Reagan famously cut a deal with the Ayatollah to release the American hostages on the day of his inauguration, despite Carter having nailed down a prisoner exchange months earlier.
If that’s the case, then it seems like he could choose to end the conflict at any time.
He's full of shit. This isn't a hostage negotiation where Biden did 95% of the work for him already. This is an intractable siege spanning a third of the country's land area which has been spiraling into long range bombings of the respective civilian capitals. Trump isn't going to be able to leverage a ceasefire that's already on the table, because Zelensky isn't asking for a ceasefire, he's asking for permission to use higher capacity long range missiles to force Russian troops off the southern front.
I have no doubt that he can’t actually end it without basically giving in entirely to Russia.
The siren song Trump sings is that he could have prevented the '22 invasion by playing nice with Putin before tanks crossed the border. And 100%, if there had been a detente prior to the outbreak of open conflict, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Even at a concession of territory, this arguably would have been preferable to the holocaust committed across the territory to date.
But the reality is that he was just as happy to sell advanced weapons systems to Ukraine in 2018 as Biden has been in extending military aid today. If anything, Trump was more responsible for the Ukraine/Russia war going hot than Biden. And not even for particularly noble reasons (MIC $$$!!!)
Trump falsely promised Ukrainian leadership his full support in the event of a Russian retaliation, sold them a bunch of tacti-cool military surplus, and then turned around and tried to cut the same fucking deal with the Russians.
In this sense, it also invokes Reagan who was famous for sending Rumsfeld to cut arms deals with both Iran and Iraq shortly before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War.
Promising both countries your support, goading them into conflict, and then pulling back to let them duke it out is textbook John Bolton foreign policy. And guess who was whispering in Trump's ear all through that first term in office?
It’s not a mystery how he plans to do it. He’ll demand Zelenskyy cede taken territory to Russia. If Zelenskyy doesn’t accept those terms, then the funding to Ukraine will stop.
He doesn't mean he could end it at any time. He says "if I'm elected" cause he's talking about the time period after he won the election but before he actually took office.
The moment you win the election and become the person who will DEFINITELY be the president in a couple of months, your bargaining power with other nations (and anyone really) goes through the roof compared to what you had as a mere candidate.
I've stated that last as a fact though it's just what seems self-evidently true to me.
Everyone knows Trump would just force a Russian victory. He could do that just by refusing further support for Ukraine.
It would be great if we stopped spending money on foreign wars, but why can't the democrats adopt an anti-war position rather than trying to out-warmonger the republicans?
You know, there's good people on both sides. People with a lot of value and good ideas. It reminds me of my businesses, so many good people. There's a lot of good people in this world. You know what else is good? Watermelon. It's a melon.... Made... From water. How incredible. It's delicious. How do they do that?
Forgot the context of what you were responding to when I saw it in my list of replies I've recieved, so I thought for a second that someone was trying to fight Dracula.. and I'm like "Them Belmonts are at it again aren't they? Didn't think Drac was gonna be back for another 11 years"
He has said several times before that he would end the ruzzian occupation by making a deal with them. Most definitely a loser's deal where Ukraine would give up land.
Everyone else with half a brain cell left in our brain and with some heart, we think ruzzians should get the fuck out and pay for all the damage and murdering. That's the negotiation that needs to happen. And you see, am just a regular person with a low IQ. I'm sure Harrys will do way better. And I'm sure any person could probably do better at least at deciding if ruzzia is doing something bad.
Pardon what? ruzzia is permanently lower case double z for me now if that's what you are referring to. putin is the same as well. Neither deserve to be written in upper case since we use lower case for animals and things. Sure they are both things too.
The conflict started more than a decade ago. Currently it's a proxy war mostly limited to the territory of Ukraine and Russia. Other countries are in the pipeline.
Focusing in on his one singular good take to criticize as usual.
Minimizing loss of life by negotiating peace is a good thing. The hawks didn't get enough from our last 20 year war that just ended so they want to indefinitely commit to another conflict, and it doesn't matter how many die or whether there's anything other than rubble left afterwards, all that matters is nationalist pride and defense industry profits. I wish they'd asked Harris what the timetable was, how long and exactly how much blood and treasure she's willing to commit over a couple provinces on the other side of the world.
How quickly we forget the past. People learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan.
If only we could get someone who's consistently anti-war, and not an absolutely horrible and disgusting person in every other aspect.
Hmmm... I'm a staunch pacifist and also 100% behind helping Ukraine. These things are not at odds because the enemy of pacifism is aggression. The person that can actually end the war is on the other side of the world.
You don't get to call yourself a pacifist, let alone a staunch one, and then rally around the defense of the fatherland, even if it's your own fatherland, which in this case I'm assuming it's not. This is complete nonsense and hypocrisy.
I'm a Roman Legionnarie out fighting in Gaul, but I'm a "staunch pacifist," you see, because Rome made an alliance with one of the Gallic tribes and its neighbor tried to mess with it, so now, I'm out here slaughtering foreigners hundreds of miles away from home to defend Rome's honor. But I'm a pacifist, you see!
What the hell does "pacifism" mean to you?
Here's how Google defines it:
the belief that any violence, including war, is unjustifiable under any circumstances, and that all disputes should be settled by peaceful means.
I've read works by actual pacifists such as Tolstoy, whose views reflected that definition. Can you cite any "pacifist" who thinks supporting a war, even a defensive one, is consistent with pacifism?
Wow, if it's that easy, then I definitely don't think people should be going out and dying over it, there's just no reason for it when anybody could just pick up the phone and tell him to give the territory back instead.
To be unwavering anti-war including defensive wars, is appeasement, and WWII is a demonstration of exactly where that leads. Even if you ignore all the combat related deaths, millions were still just butchered by the nazis in non-combat situations, and that number would have been even more if no one stood up to counter. The reluctance to forceful resistance resulted in more deaths including innocent non-combatants. Problem is in reality, if all the 'good' folks are anti-war, then the one asshole who is pro-offensive war conquers all. Being highly skeptical of war, especially offensive war I can see, but to stand aside as evil just takes and takes is too far.
Further, it's not our blood to commit, it's the Ukrainians. We are supplying but it's their skin in the game, not our forces. It's their choice to make and we are supporting that decision in the face of a completely unjustified invasion. This is distinct from Iraq and Afghanistan, where we went in with our own forces to unilaterally try to force our desired reality on a sovereign nation. If Ukraine decided to give in, we would not stand in the way, even if we were disappointed in the result.
Also, the only reason the goalposts moved to 'a couple of provinces' is that Russia was stopped when they tried to just take the whole thing. If Russia had just rolled in to easy three day victory, then the goalposts would have moved to have even more Russian expansion (as happened in WWII with Germany).
The exact lines would have to be negotiated. For starters, obviously Russia is going to keep Crimea which they held before the war started. At most, they'd receive the disputed provinces which had been fighting in the civil war before they got involved, which requested Russian assistance. I don't know what percentage of Ukrainian territory those provinces are.
The exact amount of loss that's acceptable to achieve peace is debatable, but there hasn't been any discussion of it whatsoever. Zelensky has insisted on zero territorial concessions at all, including retaking Crimea, which is completely unrealistic.
Marxist-leninist account made inconsolable from others that say supporting a country resist russian invasion is worth fighting and funding a defensive war. Go figure
And Kamala refused to say whether babies can be aborted at 9 months. Politicians being politicians.
EDIT: She didn’t respond to the Chinese tariffs question either. Stop glorifying politicians. None of them are being straight with you, because they’re playing the fence for votes. You can admit that politicians are bad AND you can still support and vote for them.
That's an amazingly stupid take from someone who apparently didn't watch the debate.
Trump claimed that babies were being aborted at 9 months and after they were born. This is a lie he repeats over and over at rallies that you apparently do watch. The moderators made it clear that that was illegal in all 50 states.
Why would Harris need to debunk something insanely stupid that the moderators already debunked?
Trump kept saying abortion after 9 months, they put the baby aside and decide it's fate. They execute the baby. And the debate just kept going on.. how in hell can the debate just keep going on after that?
Sane response would be to "wait what?!" Stop everything wtf are you talking about?
An abortion at 9 months is to remove a dead baby from the whomb (leaving it in there kills the mother too). Babies die in utero.. it's horrible but happens.
Same as with babies that are born with previously undiagnosed developmental or birth defects that turn out not to be viable.. it's horrible but it happens.
Keep messing with medical care for political reasons and more mothers and babies will die..
Noone is removing a viable baby and then killing it. But since every accusation is a confession, I'm now worried about republicans.