Trump and Putin Are in Deep Trouble and Need Each Other More Than Ever | OPINION: The Kremlin offers a Trump-Putin ticket for 2024
Ceiling Collapses At Mr. Figaro's Barber Shop
By now, readers must know that Mister Figaro, the Singing Stylist of 1919 Avenue Z, is one of my favorite Sheepshead Bay barber shops.
So it pained me to discover yesterday that the shop is closed, if only temporarily. The building’s ceiling and light fixtures collapsed, leaving dust and rubble everywhere. A sign now hangs in the window, informing clients:
To all customers,
We will be closed due to falling ceiling and light fixtures inside of store. Hope to reopen soon. Call 718-332-2122 to check if reopened.
Inside, you can see a lot of the mess and damage, and it looks like cleanup is already underway. However, a Department of Buildings Order to Vacate also hangs in the window, and if that came while they were doing the work, it’s possible the DOB deemed it unsafe. A neighbor didn’t know about the vacate order, but told us the owners still plan to repair the shop and reopen soon.
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Times are tough for both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Since they are two of the world’s most repulsive and dangerous people, that might be considered good news.
But, not so fast. Because there is one thing that can save Trump from the dark realities of legal accountability—and it happens to also be the only thing that is likely to turn the tide in Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine. That is the reelection of Donald Trump.
Once again the interests of Trump and Putin are aligned, but this time the stakes for both are much higher than they were in 2016. That should worry us all. It should worry us a lot.
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Worse still, there are others for whom the 2024 election is of existential importance. It includes Trump’s close allies—who may face jail unless Trump is reelected and can pardon them. It includes extremists and their allies—who also see a Trump victory as a get out of jail (or avoid jail) free card. It includes advocates of MAGA wingnut policy views, for whom four more years of Joe Biden appointing rational jurists could undo many of their initiatives subjugating women, criminalizing love and identity within the LGBTQ community, and impeding the ability of voters to participate in a democracy they would like to see weakened or done away with altogether.
There are still others for whom the stakes are high, if not quite existential. These include countries that have thrown in their lot with Trump. (The disgraced former president’s business ties to these are now reportedly an investigative target of special counsel Jack Smith.)
It also, of course, includes politicians in the U.S. who have declared their loyalty to His Roiled MAGAsty himself and whose political fates are likely to mirror his.
Taken together they will be an unholy alliance that poses a real threat to next year’s elections being fair, while also increasing the likelihood that the results of next year’s elections will be contested in ways that may make the Jan. 6 insurrection (and Trump’s nationwide false electors campaign) seem mild by comparison.
You can see the situations of both Trump and Putin’s fiasco in Ukraine getting more dire daily.
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His New York hush money trial now has a start date, Mar. 25, 2024. Smith is reportedly putting the finishing touches on his conclusion regarding the president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. He’s also looking into Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and has expanded the ambit of their inquiry to look at possible wrong-doing associated with Trump fund-raising. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has signaled that any charges in the case she might bring regarding election interference by Trump and/or his allies are just around the corner, due in the first three weeks of August. More charges may come from other states on election fraud. And the verdict against Trump in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll may be compounded as she expands her claims in a second, related case.
As for Putin, while he has declared “victory” in the battle for Bakhmut, it has come at an enormous cost to his military. It is unlikely that his forces will be able to hold the smoldering remnants of the devastated city for much longer. What is more, the U.S. and allies have agreed to provide Ukraine with advanced F-16 fighters and the training needed to fly them. Ukrainian “militia” have also launched attacks across Russia’s border.
Russia’s military is depleted. Putin has effectively committed his entire conventional force to Ukraine…where it is getting pummeled. A major Ukrainian offensive is expected to commence soon. Even one of his former buddies, Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigrozhin, has said that Putin could face a revolution at home and defeat in Ukraine if Putin doesn’t turn things around—which seems unlikely.
Prigozhin, of course, played a central role in helping to aid Putin in his efforts to compromise U.S. elections in 2016. He even admitted it publicly. Whatever reasons Putin may have had for trying to help get Trump elected in 2016, they are clearly much greater today. And whatever reasons Trump may have had for running, they too are transcended by those he has right now.
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With so many trials and such serious crimes being discussed, the odds that Trump faces not only conviction but possible jail time, may make delaying the trials and verdicts until he can win the election his only defense. And it is clear he will try anything in that regard, from whining on social media that the New York case has been brought to interfere with his campaigning, to revealing himself to be MAGA’s true Karen-in-chief with a letter whining about his mistreatment and asking for an audience with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland so he could make his feelings known to “the manager.”
As for Putin, his last chance to turn his epic blunder in Ukraine into something he can claim is a success is also a Trump victory. Trump, during his CNN pep rally, made it clear he does not see Ukraine as a special ally of the U.S. and he won’t condemn Putin war crimes.
Putin critics have already demonstrated they view Trump as Putin’s “best hope.” (During the CNN event, Trump also refused to say he would accept 2024 election results.)
So here we are again, only moreso. Trump needs Putin. Putin needs Trump. They have plenty of cronies and bad actors and fellow travelers who need them both. Which is why this is a moment to prepare for the shape their collaboration might take.
Unfortunately, dangerously, this is also the moment that Trump’s GOP is once again promoting the lie that Trump never colluded with Russia. This time, they are seizing upon the recent report by Special Counsel John Durham to say that it “proves” that the whole Trump-Russia affair was, as Trump so often asserted, “a hoax.”
Of course, it said nothing of the sort. In fact, it was a big nothingburger that offered a mild critique of the FBI…without actually even saying the FBI shouldn’t have investigated Trump and Russia.
And we know that every investigation conducted in the past—including those by the intelligence community, the U.S. Senate, and special counsel Robert Mueller—indicated that Russia actively intervened in 2016 to help Trump. In fact, the intelligence community also concluded Russia tried to help Trump in 2020.
Putin has proven he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Trump has done the same.
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Given the intersection of their interests in 2024, and the profound urgency with which both see a Trump election as essential, now is the time to mobilize to anticipate, identify, and stop both foreign and domestic interference in our upcoming election—and potential initiatives to undo the results of those elections.
That is why it is so essential not to shrug off the misinformation about the Durham report as just more spin. It is precisely the kind of effort to convince us to drop our guard that serves the interests of the enemies of our democracy. It is also why efforts to hold Trump accountable must proceed unimpeded by the elections that Trump sees as his best legal strategy.
Finally, it is why the administration needs to make it clear that it is preparing for whatever may come and that whenever threats are seen, they are stopped as early as possible.
No election in our history has been either more important or more imperiled. We have plenty of evidence to support that view. Now, we must act on that evidence with unwavering resolve.
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The bizarre and unsavory strongman bromance between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump continues. If you’re a MAGA Republican and not having second thoughts by now, something’s wrong with you.
The latest head-scratcher and jaw-dropper is a new list of sanctions slapped on American individuals by the Russian president. That’s already weird. Aren’t we in the West the ones imposing sanctions on him for waging a genocidal war of conquest against Ukraine?
But there it is. Putin, as ever, peddles his own narratives that wantonly invert reality. So in the Kremlin’s book, it’s Russia that must punish the West for its aggression.
The creepier part is Putin’s pick of the 500 Americans on that list. Quite a few of them have nothing whatsoever to do with Russia or American policy toward the Kremlin. They instead share a different distinction: They’re domestic foes of the former U.S. president.
There’s Letitia James, for example, the attorney general of New York who’s suing Trump for fraud. And Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia, who resisted Trump when, after losing the 2020 election, the president leaned on him to “find” votes to flip the outcome. And there’s Michael Byrd, the police officer who shot and killed a pro-Trump rioter on Jan. 6, 2021, when MAGA crowds sacked the U.S. Capitol. Also included are celebrity Trump foils like Barack Obama and Stephen Colbert.
What’s going on here? Putin, with his KGB-trained mind, is one of the most manipulative creatures on Earth. His sanctions list is just one more twist in his extensive and global disinformation campaign, designed to sow division and discord in Western societies.
In this case, the Russian president is once again signaling to Trump and the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican party that they should make common cause. Your enemies are my enemies, Putin is vibing. And of course he’d quite appreciate Trump returning that favor if he gets back into the White House, and even if he doesn’t.
I say “once again” because Putin has long been siding with Trump, on the sly and not so sly. As the special counsel’s report of 2019 confirmed, Russia meddled in the election of 2016 to help Trump. The special counsel’s only question mark was whether Trump actively “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” — or merely enjoyed its help passively. That ambiguity was enough for Trump to run around mouthing “no collusion, no collusion.”
Once in the White House, Trump certainly seemed to see the world in a Putinist way. His first impeachment had to do with his attempt to bully Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who’s lately been number 1 on Putin’s — literal — hit list. Trump also talked to his NATO allies — especially former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who triggered him in unfathomable ways — as though they were America’s real enemies. At the same time, he made googly eyes at his neo-Tsarist pal in the Kremlin, with the admiration of one authoritarian for another.
In that way, both strongmen belong to a small but growing club of populists that also includes Viktor Orban. The Hungarian prime minister impresses them because he took a liberal democracy, one that’s part of the European Union and NATO, and in effect turned it into an “illiberal” — Orban’s word — autocracy. He did that in part by stoking resentments against liberals, LGBTQ people, migrants and eurocrats. Step by step, he also ignored, then dismantled, almost all of those pesky and tedious checks and balances that democracies have. That’s made Orban a hero of the American far right.
But Hungary is small, whereas Russia is — militarily and geographically, at least — huge, and it has nukes. Have Trump fans not noticed that Putin has over the past 15 months repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons?
Trump has noticed, of course. But it doesn’t seem to bother him all that much. Supporting Ukraine and antagonizing Russia is not in America’s national interests, he told Tucker Carlson when the latter still had his talk show on Fox News. Instead, Trump is sure that he’d broker peace. What he seems to have in mind is Ukrainian capitulation.
America’s Western allies are increasingly clear about their fears and hopes for next year’s U.S. presidential election. In reply to students at a school near Berlin this week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz dropped diplomatic niceties. “The current president is better, so I want him to be reelected,” he said. Joe Biden, Scholz added, knows “what you have to do to prevent the world from going to war.” Trump, Scholz said, only stands for division.
Ultimately, it’s Republicans who must decide whom to nominate for president, and whether to keep turning themselves into a Trumpist cult. It’s not too late. Raffensperger, the one on Putin’s sanctions list, is also Republican, for example. And he knows how to deploy macabre humor for patriotic ends.
“While I was previously unaware of my anti-Russian activities, I accept the verdict of Russia, whose commitment to truth, justice and the rule of law speaks for itself,” Raffensperger deadpanned this week. “My inclusion on this list is deserved, and I appreciate them thinking of me.” Let Republicans think on that.
Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering European politics. A former editor in chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist, he is author of “Hannibal and Me.” This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.
Seven men charged with attempted murder of DCI John Caldwell theguardian.com/uk-news/2023…
Saturday on PBS News Weekend, how the United Nations plans to fix the world’s plastic pollution problem. Then, the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar grows as fighting in the civil war intensifies. Plus, with U.S. maternal mortality rates on the rise, we look at what health services are available to expectant and new mothers.
WATCH TODAY’S SEGMENTS:
News Wrap: Negotiators narrow in on debt limit deal
https://youtu.be/Z4dJlzIT3Yo
How the UN aims to sharply reduce plastic pollution by 2040
https://youtu.be/vhtSTBKemuU
How the U.S. is addressing its maternal mortality crisis
https://youtu.be/D42VHpap6No
Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis worsens as civil war ramps up
https://youtu.be/1lHdybZI86I
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00:00 - Intro
01:58 - News Wrap
04:37 - The Plastic Problem
12:05 - Maternal Health
18:11 - Myanmar in Crisis
(27 May 2023) Here's the latest for Saturday, May 27th: McCarthy says negotiators are ‘closer to an agreement’ on debt crisis; Texas House launches historic impeachment proceedings; Man opens emergency door on South Korea flight; VP Harris gives commencement speech at West Point.
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