A Crippling Blow

A Crippling Blow

The Oval Office meeting with President Zelenskyy was a disaster for everyone. It was a deliberate and calculated ambush, a very pubic attack on an American ally. It was also an attempt to try to publicly humiliate Zelenskyy while extorting Ukraine’s minerals rights.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson writes that the meeting was “a setup to provide justification for cutting off congressionally approved aid to Ukraine…” The “impoundment” of funds Congress has determined should go to Ukraine is illegal under the terms of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, and it is unconstitutional because the Constitution gives to Congress, not to the president, the power to set government spending and to make laws. The president’s job is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” (US support for Ukraine was illegally halted on Monday.)

If you don’t understand the significance of this, this would be like America switching sides in WWII and teaming up with Hitler and the Nazis.

This meeting was personal for trump, an ugly chapter in his Revenge Tour. It is also not the first time the felon has tried to extort President Zelenskyy; the felon was impeached for his first such attempt. Zelenskyy wisely refused to comply the first time, and he refused this time as well. Although he was treated worse than an enemy of the US, he stood his ground and did not succumb to the extortion or pressure. He is a true hero.

What Zelenskyy seeks is something that all normal human beings understand. As human beings, we know there are things worth risking your life and your fortune for - peace, freedom, democracy and country. This is a concept the felon president and his handlers clearly do not posses and, therefore, do not understand. They care only about money and having people grovel at their feet. It is from this deeply bereft perspective that our country and democracy are being dismantled. It took Hitler just 100 days to establish the Third Reich. The felon is well on his way doing it to America in only one month.

Journalist Sharon Astyk writes, “… what Zelensky did (in the Oval Office meeting) was make something fully public…while their (trump’s, JD Vance’s, etc.) vices are on full display, there is no human ground on which to build an appeal. It is like they all dropped trousers and sh** on the rug in the oval office. And they didn't have the comprehension of what was lacking in themselves even to be embarrassed. America chose leaders who do not share normal basic human values, and are so far removed from them they don't even understand that something is missing.”

Trump ended the meeting by saying it was “going to be great television”. I’m glad the TV cameras were there to record those agonizing minutes when America was handed over to Putin, when we ceased to be a leader of the free world as trump pounded a crippling blow to our country. The cameras showed us what trumpism is capable of in its insatiable demand for loyalty and money. The lack of humanity is what drives the cruelty of this coup. It is their sick feverish addiction to wealth and power that is dissolving everything we treasure.

Former Republican representative Liz Cheney posted: “Generations of American patriots, from our revolution onward, have fought for the principles Zelenskyy is risking his life to defend. But today, Donald Trump and JD Vance attacked Zelenskyy and pressured him to surrender the freedom of his people to the KGB war criminal who invaded Ukraine. History will remember this day—when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for.”

Bronwyn Della-Volpe