An unholy trinity or just a seedy threesome: Trump, Musk and Putin? - Trump thread #138

[Spandauer]

With a side order of Vance, Zuckerberg and Netanyahu.*
(*Other flavours are available)

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
George Orwell

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5258416-trumpmusk-folie-a-deux-trump-thread-137

As if they want to lie on a beach sipping a pina colada. Oh hang on, Palestinians won't even be in Gaza

The WH Press Pool thing is interesting. A few weeks ago on Pod Save America they were talking about an occasion (can’t remember the exact details) where the Obama administration were going to give an interview to all bar one news outlet and the entire press room rallied behind the excluded outlet. Not because they liked/agreed with their content but because THAT is what you do to protect free speech.

Oh for simpler times.

<stares at picture of CJ Cregg and wipes away a tear>

Jay Rosen has been writing about how the press should be covering Trump since 2016 or 17. He's not a big fan of access journalism anyway. I hope some people are listening to him

https://pressthink.org/2017/01/send-the-interns/

Yes, I remember that. It was a deputy treasury guy giving a briefing and they were excluding Fox News as the WH press office and Obama were (understandably) annoyed about various lies and smears. The rest of the press corps united behind Fox and the WH relented.

I finally broke down and watched it. I feel like their vision of the future is a planet mostly populated by Elon lookalike robots and self driving Teslas. I suppose a few handmaidens here and there for the robots to impregnate.

What if the reports about the vast mineral deposits in Ukraine were....wrong? Wouldn't that be a shame if Putin's orange bitch signed a deal that turned out to be worthless 😏

I saw an article about that come up on my Apple News feed @Eyesopenwideawake. But it was from The Critic so not sure how trustworthy that would be.

Dmitry Grozoubinski
@explaintrade.com

Full text of the Ukraine-US Minerals Deal.

Seems fine (an investment and reconstruction fund);

Has no resemblance to what the Trump administration has been saying about it;

Can't tell if Ukraine is good at diplomacy, or Trump bad at it.

www.eurointegration.com.ua/eng/articles/2025/02/26/7205922/

Apparently trump believes that to win, the other must lose and no way will Trump bear a loss.

You beat me to it Spandauer

Can't tell if Ukraine is good at diplomacy, or Trump bad at it.

Or both

He did with Mexico and Canada

"It is not enough to win. Others must lose."

Gore Vidal.

I don't think that deal sounds too bad for either side. Ukraine gets to keep the income from minerals that are already in their budget so at least they aren't having to give any current funds up + a 50/50 split of future revenue. I think once again Scrotus invented his 'big beautiful deal' in his own pea brain, but the reality is quite different.

I suppose they are separate issues, but I don't see anything in there about Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO or agreeing to Russia keeping any territory they've gained. Have I missed something or will that be separate negotiations?

On other issues: that Gaza video was beyond words. Ok, I can think of a few. Crass, insensitive, trashy, delusional, narcissistic, and vulgar will do for a start. Does anyone know what the actual source of it is?

There haven't been any security guarantees agreed yet

Musk and Vance were defending this guy

Romanian authorities this morning arrested pro-Kremlin presidential candidate Călin Georgescu. Officials found $10m in cash and plane tickets to Moscow at the home of one of his bodyguards.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70eky7l6pxo

DH and I were just discussing "the video" - he hasn't seen it yet so I described it to him (with appropriate language...) and he asked if it could actually be a piss-take and Trump's default vanity setting has assumed it's a genuine homage to him and his idea.

Remember the Kremlin strategy is to win on any outcome. It's the most efficient use of resources. (Imagine surrounding a physical enemy in a sinkhole. No matter where you fire from, you win).

When you apply that understanding to things as they unfold, it's slightly easier to then follow the trail back to the source.

Regardless of whether people believe this video or not, it will have achieved it's goal of furthering the crack in the population. The strategy being to place a small chisel into that crack and rely on the weight of the stone to allow it to fall free of the quarry.

If Trump had not had won the election, it would still have suited Putin. All that would have done is bought the civil war he is banking on forwards - not delayed it.

I'm not sure about the promo video.

On one hand, it could be a complete and utter piss-take.

Or

Maybe he does think there will be a Trump Gaza, an enormous golden erection paying homage to St Donald.

I mean, he's batshit nuts, so anything goes? 🤷‍♀️

https://bsky.app/profile/benmullin.bsky.social/post/3lj3m7lxgvk2e

SCOOP: WaPo Opinion editor David Shipley is out. Jeff Bezos emails staff about a change to Post Opinions: "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets."

"personal liberties and free markets."

Uh huh. The problem is that to Bezos 'personal liberty' means billionaires doing whatever they want and 'free market' means billionaires shafting the rest of the world.

What was the masthead for the Post? Oh yeah, "Democracy Dies in Darkness".

To quote (for the oldies on the thread) Emily Litella: "Never mind".

I can't decide whether the Trump Circus has modelled itself on the film "Idiocracy" - an unimaginable satire on the future USA when made - or "Back to the Future 2".

Free markets?

As in, the opposite of tariffs?

Somehow I doubt his orange overlord will be chuffed.

(Although TBF there's a distinct pool of people in the US for whom "free markets" just means "we must be free to export to wherever we want, but don't think that means you can export to us")

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/pfbid0BD7LRqQB2cPNkKmYT8tLQjsetCZuiCuc1JnNdmL8AUJmhtY8g6NNCm8X5B1jsuB5l

If the latter then at least we have hope that a kid in a DeLorean might show up soon!