https://twitter.com/lourdesgnavarro/status/1220834185843236865
Why would he have an unmarked map in his office? Is it just so he can pull the “point to country X” thing?
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Probably, and he’s pretty dumb for thinking Ukraine would be some kind of huge tricky gotcha situation. There aren’t that many countries bordering Russia, randomly pointing at one gives you like a 25% shot of being right.
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Nadler: “[Trump] is a dictator.”
There are 14.
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Right, that 47% wants to hear from the Bidens.
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From Rep. Jeffries statements yesterday
The White House meeting and military assistance were both vital to Ukraine’s very existence. As a independent democracy.
The pressure to maintain a stable relationship with the United States was enormous, because that relationship is the most important connection Ukraine has, and the only partnership that can safeguard them against a serious Russian incursion.
When Rudy Giuliani approached incoming President Volodymyr Zelensky saying that he was Trump’s personal attorney, Zelensky and team fended off the demands that were passed from Trump through Giuliani for months.
Behind the scenes Ukrainian officials scrambled madly to preserve the U.S. relationship without doing something they knew was wrong. They saw what Giuliani was doing, but in supporting corrupt figures from past Ukrainian governments, and smearing ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, but did their best to stay out of it.
Zelensky’s government understood what Trump wanted, but they knew that giving it to him risked losing the bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress that was vital to continued assistance from the U.S. So, as long as it was just Giuliani pushing them, they resisted.
Unhappy that Giuliani had not been able to get the investigations started, Trump assigned the “three amigos” to listen to Giuliani and support his play.
After Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland talked with Giuliani, reinforced the demands, and made it clear that U.S. foreign policy had been subverted to support Trump’s personal goals, Zelensky could see that the only way to preserve any U.S.-Ukraine relationship in the short term was to go along with Trump’s demands.
Even so, Ukrainian officials didn’t come to this position willingly. They drafted a version of the announcement that they hoped would satisfy Trump without making enemies in Congress. But Trump’s team shoved it back and forced them to make it more explicit.
With Giuliani, Sondland, Volker and others all pounding the Ukrainian team for announcements of the investigations, Zelensky eventually folded and agreed to the CNN interviews. Sondland walked Zelensky through what he needed to say to Trump to please him.
The interviews were only stopped when Trump was pinned down by the whistleblower, congressional inquiries, and public knowledge that forced him to release the military assistance. Without the pressure of the pending aid package, Zelensky withdrew from the interviews.
When Rudy Giuliani pulled up at Zelensky’s door and represented himself as Trump’s personal attorney, Zelensky was able to resist responding to the demands passed to him. It wasn’t until Trump backed Giuliani with senior officials—until “everyone was in the loop”— that officials in Ukraine realized just how corrupt the U.S. had become. And Zelensky saw that, for the sake of his nation, he had no choice to bend to the immeasurable pressure being applied.
If there was no pressure felt, why does Zelensky cancel the announcement of investigations that they had already set up after they found out the aid had been released?
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But only one has the Crimean peninsula hanging off of it. Which I think even I could find.
But what exactly does Pompeo think it would prove if she had failed to find it? SMH
After getting it right she should have asked him to identify the Xinjiang region of China, where the Uyghur concentration camps are.
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What if she pointed at Crimea and Pompeo was like lol that’s Russia now dumbass
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Kelly is a pretty respected journalist. She’s been in the game a long time. Pompeo is shit.
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I’m old enough to remember when a House or Senate subpoena wasn’t something where you could just go nahhhhhhh, don’t feel like it today.
Back when people believed you had to cultivate relationships if for no other reason than negotiation.
Trump figured out nah, give them nothing and bully them into the ground. They will submit.
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*As long as you command a heavily armed idiot army that’s frothy mad all the time over literally nothing.
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