Russian President Vladimir Putin with Donald Trump, Helsinki, July 16, 2018
I joined Monocle 24’s Georgina Godwin on Friday to discuss the effect of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on an already-divided US Republican Party.
Listen from 20:22:
We discuss the Trumpist background, from Donald Trump’s long-time links with Russia to his blackmail of Ukraine in 2019, freezing military aid unless it publicly declared “dirt” to discredit Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden.
We look at how Republicans are bearing the cost of enabling Trump during his four years as President, wrongly thinking they could control him. We consider how — even with Trump limited with his Twitter ban and his declaration that Putin is a “genius” — Trumpists inside and outside Washington are trying to extend his destructive legacy.
And we glance at why Fox TV’s Tucker Carlson can get away with his nightly polemics on behalf of Putin and Russia’s propaganda lines.
Fox is a private enterprise whose primary objective is to make money.
And Fox has always been like this.
A parting thought:
Can you imagine where we would be now if Trump had succeeded in overturning the 2020 US election and was still in the White House?
See also Ukraine War, Day 23: Russia Kills 80+ Civilians; Mariupol Theatre Casualties Still Unknown
South Korea reports record Covid deaths as daily cases surge past 600,000: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/17/south-korea-reports-record-covid-deaths-as-daily-cases-surge-past-600000
This is despite the fact that 63% of the country’s 52 million residents had received booster shots, with 86.6% of the population fully vaccinated.
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