Michael Tracey
Jun 07, 2024
The day before the New Hampshire Primary this year, Donald Trump Jr. haughtily assured an assembled crowd that with his father back in charge, no longer would they have to worry about sending off endless billions to the corrupt sinkhole that is Ukraine. “Would you love to continue to mortgage your children’s, your family’s, well-being and future,” Junior asked the crowd, just “to give more stuff” to the newly ascendant class of self-dealing Ukrainian oligarchs? For anyone who found such a prospect unappealing, Junior strongly advised, the solution was of course to vote for Don Senior again. This would “send a message to Washington, DC,” which he reported was shamefully getting ready to “send another $60 billion to Ukraine.”
Little did the voters who had gathered that afternoon know, and perhaps little did Junior himself even know, that in very short order Don Senior would in fact play a politically decisive role in doing exactly what Junior had told them he was going to prevent: sending another $60 billion ($61 billion, to be exact) to Ukraine — which amounted to the largest ever provision of US funding for the war.
Somehow, the intervention of Trump the Elder in this episode has already become quickly forgotten, as he seizes the mantle of persecuted martyr after his Manhattan criminal conviction. But it should at least be noted for the record, with Ukraine now having been authorized to use American-provided weaponry to strike targets inside Russia — one of the most drastic escalations of the entire conflict. Those munitions flying across the border come courtesy of President Joe Biden, yes, but also his allegedly mortal nemesis, Trump. If there was any justice, both men could have their names emblazoned in gold lettering on the missiles, in a gesture of heartwarming bipartisan unity.
Trump’s support for the nearly $100 billion “National Security Supplemental” enacted in late April was the “the factor that made the bill not just possible, but passable,” according to Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) who confirmed in an interview that he personally liaised with Trump on the matter — brokering phone calls with Trump, literally between his NYC court proceedings, to strategize how they could collectively get the mammoth war-funding passed. Also spearheading the calls was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who Cramer told me is endearingly known in the Senate Republican Conference as the “Trump Whisperer.”
By this, Cramer meant that Graham is always skillfully maneuvering with an eye toward pleasing his principal patron, Trump, and ensuring that their interests are maximally aligned. Despite the common perception that Graham represents some ill-defined “neocon” wing of the Republican Party, while Trump represents some equally ill-defined “America First” wing, the increasingly convergent political and policy priorities of the two strongly hints that there is no longer much of a discernible difference between these supposedly rival GOP factions.
“This would not have passed without Donald Trump,” Graham triumphantly and accurately proclaimed on Fox News.
Graham’s “whisper” campaign has also come to include cleverly repurposing the mantra of “America First” to include funding endless wars in Ukraine and Israel, among his other hardcore interventionist priorities. “America First says, let’s help Israel. Let’s help Ukraine,” Graham boldly pronounced on the Senate floor.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on the Senate floor ahead of the vote on the “National Security Supplemental” bill, April 23, 2024
Central to the strategy was Speaker Mike Johnson, who Trump lovingly nicknamed “MAGA Mike” when he first received the gavel last October. “You don’t have to be a political scientist to see the potential positioning that could take place if you can get Trump on board, and provide some cover for Speaker Johnson,” Cramer explained to me.
So in the week before the crucial House vote on the “aid” package, Johnson carefully choreographed a PR strategy that focused on highlighting Trump’s critical support for the bill. He made the rounds on conservative talk radio (Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, Brian Kilmeade) touting how Trump had “championed” the measure, and how the two were “100% united” on Ukraine, thus neutralizing any meaningful GOP opposition, given Trump’s unparalleled sway over Congressional Republicans — the guy can essentially pick GOP primary winners with a single Truth Social post. All the while, Trump diligently bestowed his blessings on Johnson, declaring him to be a “good man” who was doing a “very good job,” and urging Johnson’s internal GOP critics to back down. “I stand with the Speaker," Trump announced beside Johnson at Mar-a-Lago, shortly before the bill was to be officially introduced.
According to Trump’s legislative liaisons, all the relevant players seemed perfectly content to accommodate Trump’s cockamamie suggestion to supposedly structure the funds as a “loan” — an addition which Johnson then cited in his lobbying push to give the bill a MAGA seal of approval. “We never got pushback from Democrats or the White House,” Cramer said.
If you think that so-called “loan” is going to be repaid anytime soon, I have a bridge in Palm Beach to sell you. And either way, only a small portion of the monies disbursed — $8 billion — is even designated as a theoretical “loan.” The rest is a standard gift straight out of the US Treasury.
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https://www.mtracey.net/p/never-forg...rump-snookered
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