#Bush 41 Administration

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

On Monday, a group of over 200 former Republican officials endorsed Kamala Harris for president. These officials—who worked for the late Sen. John McCain, Sen. Mitt Romney, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush—represent the last three Republican administrations and the two Republican presidential candidates before Trump.  They all share a single message: “[R]e-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation.” Could Trump compile over 200 Democratic officials of a similar rank who support his candidacy? It’s not clear if he’d find that many supporters even among those who served in his administration. Either way, the support that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are getting from Republicans should be a big red flag to Trump and his supporters.

Joining the officials endorsing Harris is retired four-star General Larry Ellis, who served as the commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command under George W. Bush. This is the first time he has endorsed a candidate for president. "Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is wholly and dangerously unfit for Commander-in-Chief,” Ellis wrote in his endorsement of Harris. “He praises and emboldens our enemies that seek to weaken our country. He has denigrated our brave men and women in uniform.” The mass endorsement follows the appearance of former Republican officials during all four nights of last week’s Democratic National Convention. At least seven Republicans appeared on the DNC stage, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

Their endorsement of Harris doesn’t come because these Republicans have suddenly adopted Democratic policy positions. As the letter from the former officials states, they have “plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz.” But these officials are putting party aside to endorse Harris because they recognize the magnitude of Trump’s threat to American democracy.

[...] Republicans can try all they want, but the hundreds of lifelong Republican officials lining up behind Harris, as well as the long list of Trump officials who don’t want to see him return, is not something that can be just waved away. Neither can the “Republicans for Harris” groups that are appearing and gaining steam in swing states. What’s happening isn’t a big shift to the left by Republicans; it’s a broad recognition by those connected to past Republican administrations, and to many registered Republicans today, that Trump is not a continuation of the party of Abraham Lincoln. He doesn’t represent their concerns or their principles. 

Over 200 former Republican officials who worked for various Republican Presidencies and campaigns ranging from George H.W. Bush to Mike Pence, have endorsed Kamala Harris for President.

[deadpresidents]

"For the first time, I think [George H.W.] Bush looks like he's in over his head. You know, any effective leader has got to be a son of a bitch. [Dwight D.] Eisenhower was as cold as ice. He had to be to do the damn job. And [Lyndon B.] Johnson? Forget it. You have to instill the fear of God in your people in order to get results. This is Bush's problem. He's nice; everyone likes him. But no one fears him."

-- Former President Richard Nixon, on President George H.W. Bush, to his aide Monica Crowley, November 22, 1991

[militantinremission]

Why aren't Blackfolk feeling Kamala Harris?

Many outside of the [Indigenous] Black American Community are befuddled by Our COLLECTIVE rejection of Kamala Harris. Afterall, she's a 'Black' Woman that (supposedly) shares Our Experience. Why don't We give Donald Trump the same heat? Are We 'Closet Trumpers'? What about Project 2025- Aren't We concerned?! In a Word, NO. New Black Media is on a Crusade against Kamala Harris for several reasons:

She's a Democratic Candidate & the DNC hasn't done ANYTHING for Us since 1968.

She's a Prosecutor who went after Blackfolk for 'Quality of Life' Offenses, but Campaigns that she targeted 'Predators' & Drug Cartels.

She ILLEGALLY kept Black Inmates past their Release Dates, 2 profit from Prison Leasing.

She publicly stated that she wouldn't do ANYTHING just for Blackfolk Only, but has been Very Specific in getting BILLIONS for the AAPI Community.

She is Directly Responsible for the Illegal Immigrant problem currently affecting Blackfolk more than any other Demographic.

We DEMAND Tangibles, but she continues to insult Us by rolling out Bootlick Celebrities pushing Identity Politics over Policy.

I KNOW that as Black Americans, we're supposed to be functional illiterates that can't think & chew gum at the same time; but Folks should take a Closer Look at American History. Most of America's inventions & innovations came from the Minds of Black Men & Women. MANY couldn't afford Patents & either sold their inventions, like Granville Woods, or were swindled out of them. To be clear, We're FAR from Stupid.

Donald Trump is NOT a threat to Black Americans. In spite of his outlandish Comments & Talking Points, he's No Worse than 'Jim Crow Joe'- who PROMISED to have Black America's 'Back', but reneged on EVERY PROMISE made to Us. Joe Biden behaves like his Dixiecrat Mentors. He is clearly about marginalizing Black America, & Kamala said her Platform doesn't differ much from Biden's.

In the Black Community:

Immigration is more important than Abortion.

Reparations is more important than decriminalizing Marijuana federally.

Prison Reform is more important than the threat of Project 2025.

Kamala's 'Plan for Black Men' was an INSULT! The DNC assumed Blackfolk don't read past the Title Page, & wouldn't see the language that says this Plan is for EVERYONE. We have been dealing w/ Democratic Doublespeak for over 50Yrs now; watching Our Neighborhoods being neglected, while Resources meant for Us was diverted to build up Newcomers.

Donald Trump doesn't represent a Political Party that We supported LOYALLY for the last 64Yrs. We don't expect anymore from Trump than We expected from Reagan or Bush (41 & 43). The Fact of the Matter is, a Harris- Walz Administration likely means a continuation of Neo Liberal Policy that PURPOSELY marginalizes Black Americans, while propping up Immigrants w/ resources originally meant for Us.

Donald Trump, is a Megalomaniac that has No Regard for ANYONE. Fred Trump may have been a Klansman, but Donald is an Equal Opportunity Manipulator. Judging from his 1st Term in Office, Donald Trump isn't particular about WHO he grifts. If Black America is screwed regardless, We'll see to it that EVERYONE feels the Bite.

-Our Ancestors survived worse

[choppedcowboydinosaur]

Here is my view/retrospective on the legacy of emo rock/pop punk bands I listened to growing up. Also, some bands that aren't emo/pop punk but I still like.

All American Rejects: I always thought they were the rivals to Green Day, but their legacy isn't as big as the other bands in pop culture at the time. Their legacy on Bionicle for Toa Inika commercials is good. Shame they aren't as big in retrospect since I like their songs a s a kid and as an adult.

Green Day: They had a massive Pop culture impact. They peaked with the American Idiot album. A lot of their early stuff is good. Their early albums in the 90's capture this sense of malaise, angst and edginess while occasionally having funny songs. American Idiot is probably their strongest album and the most political one since it's against the Bush Administration, the Iraq War and all the shit the neocons were doing at the time. It was very energetic, intense and introspective. While 21st Century Breakdown feels like the leftovers of American Idiot. It still has the same style as American Idiot but is not as intense. 21st Century Breakdown felt more resigned than American Idiot. Like the fight was fading from them. I still like 21st Century Breakdown nonetheless. The most recent song I heard was that one where they are making fun of mass shooters called Mommy's Little Psycho. It's a decent song in its own right and the subject matter is a good satire. But in terms of the energy, it felt lacking compared to their older stuff. It feels kind of worn out. If that's how that song was, I'm guessing the rest of the album it came from must be the same unfortunately.

Politically, they are the definition of being fake rebels especially Billy Joe Armstrong. He acts like an edgy anarchist but is more of a basic bitch liberal. Kind of a shame tbh since their live shows seem fun. He never criticized Obama's foreign policy and surveillance state despite building off what Bush did. That always bugged me since he was one of the most vocal anti-Bush rockers during that time period. I've noticed this since middle school when comparing them to other pop punk bands at the time like Rise Against which was more radical. Mind you my middle school years was during George W. Bush's 2nd term where everyone was bitching about him. Sorry to bitch about politics folks it ends here. Overall, they do have good music with their older songs, but they aren't as edgy as they make themselves out to be.

My Chemical Romance: These guys also had a big impact on pop culture and Gerard Way leveraged it for his comic book writing career. When I was growing up, I thought of them as THE EMO ROCK BAND growing up. Their early stuff is surprisingly raw and kind of hardcore. Their later stuff is still good but doesn't have the same edge as their first album. The first album is more politically driven because of Gerard Way's trauma to 9/11 and it's aftermath. But it's integrated as more of this darker feeling rather than being explicit like Green Day was. I still like them.

Blink 182: They surprisingly had a big effect on other pop punk bands. Looking back, it feels like a lot of smaller bands at the time were imitating them like MxPx, Sum 41 and Anarbor. A lot of those bands felt like they were copying that fun feel Blink 182 has. They were always more light fun rather than being edgy or political. But that's fine since they were good at it. They basically were the band that were reflective of young boys in the 2000's. Fun, crass but not that edgy but still entertaining, nonetheless.

Jimmy Eats world: I don't know if they left a massive legacy but i like some of their songs. They can go surprisingly hard with songs like Disintegration.

Fall Out Boy: I don't know if they influenced other bands but I do like a lot of their earlier stuff. Mainly the stuff from the early 2000's. Their early 2010's albums like Save Rock and Roll and American Beauty are ok. I have a particular soft spot for the song What a Catch Donnie. It just speaks to me.

Panic at the Disco: I always felt they were meant to be rivals to MCR. I do enjoy the earlier stuff. Though the later stuff is just Brendan Urie doing his own thing which is still decent, and you can see how he evolves. I always thought Panic at the Disco was the whole band not just a Brendan Urie vehicle. I always thought bands just focused on staying together rather than splitting apart to do their own thing. Turns out that's actually pretty common in bands. I guess a lot of those rock band movies I watched as a kid were misleading. Really love that Green Gentleman song. It's probably my favorite song of theirs.

Red hot chili peppers: They're not pop punk but I still like their music. They're fun and interesting to listen to even to this day. I'm not sure what sub-genre they fall under buy I guess they fit into the alt-rock umbrella, I guess. Many of their songs still hold up and have a good variety to them. Some are intense, some are more introspective, and some have this sort of laid-back feel to them. I think that variety is why I like them.

Foo Fighters: I've grown to appreciate them over the years. Since I did not listen to them as a kid but rather as a teenager. Which is funny since they are probably older than most of the bands listed here so I guess I got into them kind of late. Once again, they're not pop punk but still good. I've listened to them from the mid 2000's to my high school years. I've gradually listened to more of their songs, and they hold up really well.

The Offspring: I've grown to appreciate them over the years. Since I only listened to a few of their songs growing up (mainly the Crazy Taxi theme song) but as an adult have listened to more of them. Basically, they are what Green Day wishes it was politically. They're left wing but they feel more legit somehow. Like they're more sincere and have more of an edge to them. They're not anarchist but more legit. I guess they incorporate it more naturally rather than having to put up a front. Also, they have lots of funny songs too. So, it's a good balance.

Atari's: I discovered them some years ago. Shame I never listened to them beforehand. They are fairly good. Not the greatest but worth listening to some of their songs. The acoustic version of Looking Back on Today is really good. Better than the electric guitar version. The acoustic one feels more soulful.

Anarbor: I learned of them through Cartoon Network as a kid. I enjoyed them when I was younger. They didn't stand out too much and were kind of reflective of the bands of that time period. They were still enjoyable, nonetheless.

Reel Big Fish: They are ska not pop punk, but I love their music. They are very funny as hell. I put them here as an honorable mention. They are not just funny but very entertaining in their own right.

Sum 41: I heard a few of their songs like Fat lip growing up. They are another one of those bands that in retrospect are reflective of the time they were made in. They're entertaining but don't stand out too much or change the genre.

The main thing I remember them from is We're all to blame from Godzilla Final Wars. 10-year-old me loved that and it goes harder than a Sum 41 song has any right to. it also spawned tons of Godzilla AMV's in the late 2000's on YouTube. I still love it to this day.

Those are my views on 2000's emo rock bands, pop punk bands and other bands of that time. There is a tinge of nostalgia to this, but I also tried to be more analytical. It's kind of hard not to be nostalgic about this since I pretty much grew up with these bands as a kid. But I hope I did a good job, nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed reading this!

[limelocked]

the more i read about the 2006 palestinian elections via wiki page rabbit holes the more i think the language surrounding it is so EXTREMLY weird considering where we are now with a divided palestinian government where theres not been legislative or presidential elections for soon 18 years even tho the attempt has been made at Least twice and has been embraced by both hamas and fatah in 2021 only for the scheduled election in may the same year to be suspended indefinitely by soon 18 year president abbas whos term was supposed to end 2009

from what im reading hamas and fatah got a ye old american split in 2006 where hamas got 44% of votes and fatah 41% which was a shock for israel and usa who favored fatah, this in itself would have not been a problem if not for

SURPRISE! PEOPLE GETTING INVOLVED THAT HAVE NO RIGHT GETTING INVOLVED!

the quartet on the middle east is a group of the usa, russia, the un, and the eu which for some reason was in charge of mediating between israel and palestine (please observe the usa bush administration in the room with us as well as the marked lack of middle eastern representation within the mediating parties)

the quartet said that the election was free and fair but

where youd fucking think it was the non-violence part that hamas had problems with or the recognizing israel part and maybe it was but im reading the wiki page for the Road Map of peace which is what this is talking about and good fucking god dude its so bad but if you insist on not reading the article which you should its terrible just know that famous war criminal george bush of 9/11 fame and a hardline israeli president (who as defense minister was found by an official israeli enquiry to bear personal responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre) was calling a lot of the shots and being dicks about how palestines parliament should look like and who should get to do all the violence (israel, against palestinians)

so yeah the quartet was kinda asking for a lot and hamas which had branded itself on reform and change to the at the time kinda pathetic government (re: Road Map from 2000-2004 holy shit) said we're not gonna do all that to which fatah said well then were not forming a unity government to which hamas went well were gonna form a government anyways and they did which was followed by a year of tension and conflict between hamas and fatah, international sanctions levied against the palestinian government, and the blockade of gaza (which hamas had not yet taken over)

in 2007 a unity government was created. according to leaked documents authenticated by the guardian and published together with al jazeera; abbas and the PLO conspired to form this government and if it didnt meet the quartets conditions abbas would dissolve government and set up an emergency government, which happened when hamas allied forced and fatah allied forces clashed in gaza, believed by IISS to have started over suspicion by hamas that the fatah allied presidential guard (loyal to abbas and expanded by the us) was going to take over gaza

concluding statements: the way the media talks about this time is either that gaza exclusively voted for hamas without mentioning that hamas won the majority in all of occupied palestine, or its talked about as a coup done for shits and giggles with no contributing factors. whats almost never talked about is the external involvements prior to and after the election

abbas has the constitutional power to call an election as the president, he could just do it still, thats a thing he could do

[truckermelissa]

If you see a conservative saying this, just be aware, that they are lying to you. Wholesale. This is why they use weasel words when they say these things. Always watch for these words when talking with conservatives. "Many" "Most" "Millions of" etc. These are weasel words, and they use them because they know they cannot quantify a single word they said. The reality is, if there are conservatives who are "fine with gay people" they are an extreme minority going back decades right up to the present day, so small a minority to be politically invalid, and that's what counts here. Unlike conservatives, I actually know Queer History, I'm 41-years-old, and I have a VERY good memory. Let's go through the catalouge of Conservatives in the last 40 or so years. 1980s: As the HIV pandemic was raging though the queer community conservatives were perfectly content callously watching it slowly and painfully kill 100s of thosuands of people. The deaths reached nearly 20,000 in the US in 1992 alone. They called it "god's retribution", nothing quite like "Christian Love" indeed.

President Ronald Reagan didn't say a single word nor lift a finger to do anything about it. Finally in 1987, after pressure from epidemiologists and queer rights groups, he created a commission. Led by a one Admiral (ret.) James David Watkins.

Now the Admiral here was a big fan of witch hunts within the military to dishonorably discharge anyone suspected of homosexuality. So that basically is all you need to know about him. Even his half-hearted attempts at doing something, anything at all, were completely ignored by the Reagan and later Bush Sr. administrations if you can believe it. Mind you, the Reagan/Bush administrations desire to do nothing at all about the AIDS pandemic not only worsened the pandemic, but had utterly no basis whatsoever in science, medicine, or sociology, it was pure Christian Conservative ideology. Nothing else. 1990s:

As the AIDS pandemic continued to burn though the population, the conversation began to shift by the early 1990s. In 1993 Bill Clinton and a hostile Congress were butting heads over a number of things, mostly related to the deficit left by the Reagan Administration. One of the talking points of the day was Gays in the Military.

Conservatives unilaterally wanted the military to go on witch hunts and dishonorably discharge all LGBTQ service personnel. They claimed it would destroy the military to let us serve. To which I have one question: Hey conservatives, how's that working out? It's been 12 years since LGBTQ were allowed to openly serve. Has the military collapsed yet you fucking idiots? Or were you lying as fucking usual? Anyway, Bill Clinton managed to piss off the Left and the Right (yes, the Left was fighting for gay rights in the 1990s) by introducing "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" in 1993. This would be policy for 18 years. Indeed, I was in the US Navy from 2000-2011, and am well aware of Don't Ask; Don't Tell, posters like this were common as were slurs from the chain of command.

Additionally, conservatives at the time were arguing that LGBTQ people should not be able to adopt and should they somehow have biological children, should be taken away from them. Funny how that came full circle huh? If your noticing a trend here, then you are paying attention. Much of the conservative horse shit is recycled over and over again.

Keep in mind, Trump did the same thing in 2020. I would LOVE for Conservative LGBTQ to circle that square, but I digress.

Now, it wouldn't be until the Obama Administration in 2011 that Don't Ask, Don't Tell would be repealed and gays allowed to serve openly, to much fierce resistance from........CONSERVATIVES!

2000s: Bush Jr. is president, trade towers are rubble, and we are engaged in what would become a 20-year long campaign of conquest on the other side of the planet. Bush backed a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage.

Additionally, Bush defended gay sex bans.

That's right, gay sex, much less marriage, was illegal in much of the country until 2003, something that would come to an end, much to the chagrin of conservatives, in Texas v. Lawrence. This isn't ancient history, this was 20 years ago, on similar grounds of Roe v. Wade, which is why CONSERVATIVE judges in the Supreme Court want to "revisit" it. Conservatives want to make gay sex illegal again.

2010s: As stated earlier, in 2011 Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed by Obama. Additionally in 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges was ruled making gay marriage legal across the country. Indeed prior to this some states came up with the 2nd-class citizen status of "civil unions" while others outright banned gay marraige in any form. I'll let you guess what states those were and if they were red or blue states. (Hint: It wasn't Blue States) But Obergefell passes and DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) is ruled unconstitutional. Boy were conservatives pissed about this.

LGBTQ rights were fought for and won not because of, but in SPITE of conservatives. Anyone who tells you differently is either lying, stupid, a propagandist, or any combination thereof. While Democrats could be criticized for their general inaction, and even at times complicit behavior, it was not they who were driving the fight against our rights. It is, has always been, and continues to be CONSERVATIVES. So if there's this chunk of conservatives who are allegedly fine with LGBTQ people, they are politically irrelevant within conservative politics. So irrelevant as not even worthy of consideration, and at worst, they do not exist. Never forget it.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Tom Petty's family says they sent a cease-and-desist notice to President Donald Trump's reelection campaign after the late musician's song "I Won't Back Down" was used during the president's Tulsa rally.

In a statement on Twitter, Petty's family says the song was used without permission.

"Trump was in no way authorized to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense behind," reads a statement on Petty's Twitter account, signed by daughters Adria and Annakim along with his widow Dana Petty and ex-wife Jane Benyo.

"Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind. Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together."

During the president's campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night, Trump gave a 1 hour and 41 minute speech to his supporters, during which he boasted of his administration's response to the coronavirus, said he wanted to slow down testing for the disease and blamed China for spreading the virus.

"Tom wrote this song for the underdog, for the common man and for EVERYONE," the Petty family statement added. "We want to make it clear that we believe everyone is free to vote as they like, think as they like, but the Petty family doesn't stand for this. We believe in America and we believe in democracy. But Donald Trump is not representing the noble ideals of either. We would hate for fans that are marginalized by this administration to think we were complicity in this usage."

In the past, Petty also called for George W. Bush and John McCain to stop playing "I Won't Back Down" on the campaign trail.

Trump has previously faced backlash from his choice of songs.

He came under fire last fall from the late singer Prince's estate when one of the singer's most iconic tunes, "Purple Rain," was played during the president's campaign rally in Minneapolis.

According to Prince's official Twitter account, the president went back on a promise not to use the musician's work.

"President Trump played Prince’s 'Purple Rain' tonight at a campaign event in Minneapolis despite confirming a year ago that the campaign would not use Prince’s music," the tweet said. "The Prince Estate will never give permission to President Trump to use Prince’s songs."

The tweet included an image of a letter from Oct. 15, 2018, from lawyer Megan Newton regarding the estate's first request that Trump "refrain from using Prince's 'Purple Rain,' or any other Prince music, in connection with Campaign rallies, or other Campaign events."

Pharrell Williams sent a cease-and-desist letter to Trump after the president played Williams' 2014 smash hit "Happy" at a political event in the Midwest, just hours after nearly a dozen people were gunned down in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October 2018.

Aerosmith, R.E.M. and Queen are among the other artists who have objected to the president's use of their music.

[dankusner]

Ship-jumping an ongoing theme in Texas politics

No sooner did U.S. Rep. Colin Allred wrap up the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in March than Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz released a list of Democrats backing his own reelection.

Now, as the campaign enters the final month, Allred, 41, is out with a handful of names of Republicans who’ve joined his team.

On its face, this sounds like a classic case of dueling 'man bites dog' stories.

But actually, both candidates are keeping alive a Texas tradition that not only began long before each started his political career, but dates back several years before either was born.

Allan Shivers was a Democrat in his first full term as governor in 1952 when he gave the cold shoulder to his party’s presidential nominee, Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, and lined up behind Dwight Eisenhower, the architect of World War II’s D-Day invasion who retired as a five-star general to enter politics.

Like most of his fellow southern Democratic governors of his time, Shivers was conservative and hardly a champion of harmonious race relations.

Stevenson was a Midwestern liberal and sometimes was referred to as an elitist 'egghead,' which did not compare well with his war hero rival all those decades ago.

Shivers’ decision to publicly join the Eisenhower ranks added a new term to the political lexicon: Shivercrats.

And there were enough of them that year to yank Texas out of the Democratic column for the first time since 1868, the Reconstruction-era election that the state opted to sit out.

The defection caused Shivers no near-term political harm.

In fact, both parties nominated him for governor in 1952, back when the term of office was two years, and he breezed to reelection.

Shivers would, however, get a comeuppance four years later when then-U.S. Sen. Lyndon Johnson defeated him for control of the Texas Democratic Party heading into the 1956 national convention.

A behind-the-scenes strategist in the Johnson-Shivers skirmish was LBJ protégé John Connally, who later would gain international fame as Texas governor when he was seriously wounded by gunfire as President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Though Connally was a charter member of the Texas Democratic establishment, he would later join the Republican administration of Richard Nixon in 1971 as treasury secretary.

After leaving that office, Connally would become the face of 'Democrats for Nixon' for the president’s reelection campaign. Texas had returned to the Democratic column after the Eisenhower years but went Republican by a 2-1 ratio in 1972.

The next year, Connally ended his ties to the Democrats and formally became a Republican.

Among the up-and-coming political figures whose career would be boosted by Connally was Bob Bullock. As governor in 1963, Connally appointed Bullock to what is now called the Texas Historical Commission.

When Bullock announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for state comptroller in 1974, he came to the news conference sporting a black eye from a mishap while in a sailboat.

He used the shiner and what was then a popular cigarette ad to take poke at Connally’s recent defection to the Republicans.

'I’m not like John Connally,' Bullock is quoted as saying in a biography by veteran journalists Dave McNeely and Jim Henderson. 'I’d rather fight than switch.'

Bullock won that election and held the office until he was elected lieutenant governor in 1990.

He was reelected four years later — the same year Republican George W. Bush was elected governor.

The working relationship became so warm that Bullock became the first Democrat to endorse Bush’s bid for a second term in 1998.

And in the months before his death in June 1999, Bullock was an early champion of Bush’s then-nascent run for the presidency in 2000.

Bullock’s career was in its twilight when he formed the Bush alliance.

And so, too, as it turned out, was his life.

In Connally’s case, Democrats of his stripe in the early 1970s were in descent, and he was positioning himself for a run for president as a Republican. He made such a run, but it ended badly.

Similarly, Allred’s Republican supporters and Cruz’s Democrats have no current path upward in their own parties.

One of the Allred co-chairmen, former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, now a Houstonian, didn’t seek reelection in 2022 after becoming a critic of former President Donald Trump.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg endorsed Cruz after Democratic primary voters in March rejected her because of comparatively tough-on-crime policies.

A running theme among the Texans who jumped ship to endorse across party lines was that the downside was nil, at least politically

[pashterlengkap]

Meet the award-winning activist who could soon make queer history in Florida

Here are this week’s most popular positive stories, with some fun social media posts tossed in too. Like seeing uplifting content like this? Sign up for our Good News email. School’s back in session and our cafeteria is serving up heaping helpings of good news! This week’s menu includes some spicy drag queens, a sweet first date between two women, a big slice of community help, and a nice cool Texas drink to wash it all down. We’re always interested in hearing your good news as well. So if you have any uplifting stories that you’d like to see on LGBTQ Nation, write me an email and you could find your tale at the head of the class. How’s that for being teacher’s pet? Cougars on the prowl! Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today View this post on Instagram A post shared by Devon Poole (@itsdevonpoole) Drag queens get payback after GOP politician tries to smear their reputation A New Hampshire state Republican thought he could talk trash about two local drag performers. But they fought back and taught him an important lesson: When you come for drag queens, you best not miss! Of course, drag queens have long been the glamorous warriors for the queer community. One fictional drag queen helped raise some very real money for a queer youth charity, the musician Lizzo got a small army of drag queens to fight Tennessee’s anti-drag law, and one winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race made such an impression that they got a tribute on in the U.S. House of Representatives! Yasssss — slay ladies, slay. This award-winning community organizer could become Florida’s first out trans legislator Ashley Brundage created a scholarship foundation for youth and mentored children. Now, she could make history in The Sunshine State. Gay flight attendant wins job back after “mystifying” dismissal The gay Virgin Australia flight attendant was dismissed from his job for the weirdest of reasons. Thankfully, he spoke up and is flying the friendly skies again. And now, some health advice from comedian Betty White View this post on Instagram A post shared by JASON ZEFFIR (@jasonzeffir) My first date with a girl went surprisingly well She went for a romantic beach walk with a woman named Penny — now you’re invited to be a fly on the wall and see how it all went. This story is guaranteed to make you smile. Texas brewery supports LGBTQ+ veterans with “Big Gay Beer” The business turned lemons into lemonade, and helped queer military members in the process. “Very demure” TikToker Jools Lebron’s viral fame is allowing her to fund her transition Lebron’s workplace beauty advice caught on with celebrities and web users, and now she has partnered with brands like Verizon and Lyft. You go, gurl! Friends help each other out before a big day View this post on Instagram A post shared by PRIDE+GROOM (@pridegroomnyc) The White House is providing HIV funding to the people who need it most The Biden-Harris Administration is giving a $1.4 billion grant to poorer people living with HIV — and it’s all part of a larger strategy to keep Americans happy and healthy. Lesbian DJ carries torch in Paralympic Opening Ceremonies DJ Barbara Bush appeared in a controversial Olympic Opening Ceremony segment featuring drag queens. Now she’s stepping out to show that love and inclusion win. Hundreds march for trans visibility in DC: “We stand tall because that is power” The National Trans Visibility March returned to Washington, D.C., ensuring that trans people are a part of the national conversation. You’ve never seen Titanic quite like this before… View this post on Instagram A post shared by CM Ƴσѕнι Omega (@cmyoshiiomega) From our sibling sites: * OUTSPORTS: There are at least 41 out LGBTQ+ athletes… http://dlvr.it/TCj8Cr

[gaast]

To say that Democrats' politics over the last few decades was completely divorced from the country's harsh rightward turn is to be ignorant at best and lying at worst.

When Obama was elected with a popular mandate to right the economy and bring justice to everyone who was harmed by the 2008 financial crisis, he used it instead to pass legislation that authorized Reagan-era trickle-down economics by giving huge payouts of public dollars to the very C-suite criminals who had just put so many people out of work, out of their homes, and out of their futures. He allowed Wall Street lobbyists to guide the direction of the legislation that was written in the wake of the financial crisis, and everybody watched it happen in real time. America limped towards recovery thanks to the billions of dollars used to help it recover--money taken, again, from taxpayers--went into the pockets of the obscenely wealthy.

Following that, charged with a completely dogshit health care system, Obama's signature legislation, dubbed Obamacare, forced people onto expensive marketplace plans that often offered minimum (read: inadequate) coverage. Rather than use their mandate to reshape the health care system based on models provided by Canada, Finland, or the UK, Democrats decided the better option would be to leave the system fundamentally undisturbed, except now if you don't get on your employer's plan, you can lose all the money you don't have on absurd premiums for health care you still can't afford.

Meanwhile, the Ferguson protests made all the more salient the fact that structural racism is alive and well in America. As countless people filled the streets to face an overmilitarized police force, the Democrats went to bat for the police, as they always do, wagging their fingers at the people who just want to not get murdered--or to at least see their murderers punished when they do get murdered. By failing to meaningfully address people's grievances over this issue, the Democrats ensured that more protests would erupt, guaranteeing condescending news coverage from a media environment that always kisses the rings of both the government and its police. Allowing these for-profit enterprises to cast the Black Lives Matter movement as a struggle between Black and white people, instead of as another theater of the class war raging in the country since Eisenhower, meant that further divides were made between people who should have been standing together in solidarity.

But even still, Democrats' fingers are in the many pies of the Bush administration's myriad failures. Check how many of them voted to authorize pretty much everything about the War on Terror. Hell, just check the votes on a handful of legislation. The Patriot Act? Passed the House 357-66 and the Senate 98-1. I don't think I need to tell you that there weren't 357 Republicans in the House, nor 98 in the Senate. No Child Left Behind? 381-41 in the House, 87-10 in the Senate.

The rise of the American Right was enabled by the Democrats' failures, at every turn, to work meaningfully for the working class, for immigrants, for women, for queers, for EVERYONE against the fucking CEOs, the oil executives, Wall Street, all the assholes prosecuting the class war on the side of property. To say that Donald Trump was made by Newt Gingrich and Fox News alone is to ignore the many, MANY ways that Democrats' legislative and political failures and missteps further stoked the very divisions among the working class that Fox and Gingrich and Trump prey upon. Biden's administration as President has done plenty to fight the working class. It has served as a weapon of the rich. Biden forced railroad unions to accept a contract they wanted to strike to improve. His Transportation Secretary actively refused to do anything to regulate the railroad industries' safety protocols following numerous high-profile rail disasters. Biden ran on a promise to give everyone $2000 in stimulus money, only to give us $600, less than Trump did, and tried to gaslight us into believing that we all knew that that's what he meant. He's sending weapons to Israel to kill Palestinians. He continued pretty much every single Trump-era immigration policy, including caging up kids at the border. Rather than fight for legislation to improve the lives of queer people, he just issued executive orders and pardons, the former of which can be easily and immediately overturned and the latter of which, while a good move, doesn't really help the fact that those people were treated as criminals for how fucking long, partially because of DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell, policies, lest we forget, that came into being in the Bill Clinton presidency (the former of which passed by veto-proof majorities). We make jokes about being unable to afford groceries largely because Biden refused to replace the Fed Chairman who said that he was managing inflation in such a way as to curb labor's power. He said that! He saw all the inroads that unions were making and said that he was going to use inflation to weaken them! And Biden let him stay! Biden agreed with him! Biden did! And he didn't fucking have to!

To sit here and wag your own goddam finger at anyone who doesn't want to participate in a system that has never, at any point, done any good for any of us is just fucking disgusting. It ignores the broader context of who and what Trump is, and who and what Biden is. It further enforces the goddam fucking class infighting that we all seem to love so fucking much, where it has to be Us against the Boomers and Trump country Voters and whatever the fuck else, like we aren't all fighting the same struggle, like we don't need to stand in solidarity with fucking racists and transphobes because we are ALL the ones who will suffer at the hands of fuckwits like Musk and whatever Exxon executive they want to take the fall for shaping climate-denial policy for decades to come. To say that I SHOULD, that I MUST do my part to legitimate the very system of my own fucking execution is fucking revolting.

The government is a fascist system no matter who's at the fucking levers and a fascist system will always seek to annihilate the working class. To even pretend that because one hand is "better" than the other is like saying that it's better to swallow arsenic than cyanide because at least arsenic doesn't kill you as fast. Newsflash: you're dead either way.

"The revolution is not the answer" "the revolution will leave behind the very people you say you want to protect" you are a bootlicker. You are a bootlicker.

You are a bootlicker.

You refuse, you REFUSE to imagine a better society. You have been defeated. You let your fatalism, your nihilism, overcome your idealism. You don't believe in solidarity. You don't believe in mutual aid. You don't believe in anything except making your own wretched little life as easy for you as you possibly can. You are content to fucking die.

Leave me out of it.

[lboogie1906]

Joshua Isaac Smith was (born April 8, 1941) in Garrard County, Kentucky. Growing up in Loveland, Ohio. He earned a BS from Central State University. He worked as a high school biology teacher in DC and taught Biology and Chemistry at the University of Akron, where he studied law. He became a manager at the New York division of Plenum Publishing Corporation. He served as an executive director of the American Society for Information Science. He attended management courses at the University of Delaware and Central Michigan University. He founded the computer firm Maxima Corp in 1978. By 1993 the company had revenues over $41 million and had been ranked by Black Enterprise magazine at #33 in its list of minority businesses. In 1996 the company had expanded to operate in 14 US states, employing 800 members of staff. He serves as a trustee on several boards and has been a strong advocate for African American entrepreneurship. He became the “leading spokesman for African American businessmen under the Reagan and Bush [George H] administrations”. He was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to be the chair of the Commission on Minority Business Development.

He was appointed chairperson of the State of Maryland’s Task Force on Minority Business Reform, advancing to serve as an advisor to the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Minority Business Reform. He serves as chairman and managing partner of the Coaching Group. Other directorships include CardioComm Solutions Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Federal Express Corporation, and The Allstate Corporation. He has been a director of Caterpillar since 1993. In 2008, he launched a weekly radio show Biz Talk with Josh Smith, which ran on CBS Radio.

He was named an outstanding alumnus by the Loveland Schools Foundation. He donated $1 million to his alma mater Central State University. The university renamed one of its buildings to Joshua I. Smith Center for Education and Natural Sciences to honor him. He received the Thurgood Marshall College Fund HBCU Alumnus of the Year award at the 26th TMCF Awards Gala.

He married Reverend Jacqueline Jones-Smith (1979). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphaphialpha

[deadpresidents]

"If I gain Reagan's confidence, I'll have tons to do. If I don't, I'll be going to funerals in Paraguay."

-- George H.W. Bush, on what his role would be as Ronald Reagan's Vice President, during the 1980 campaign

[mariacallous]

As the eight candidates who qualified for the first Republican primary debate convened in Milwaukee, two questions loomed over the proceedings. First, would anyone begin to emerge as the principal challenger to Donald Trump, or would the 2024 campaign repeat the 2016 failure of the anti-Trump forces to coalesce around a single alternative? Second, if 2024 is to be different, who will be Trump’s main opponent?

Six months ago, the answer seemed clear — Ron DeSantis, who had won a landslide reelection as governor of Florida and whose attacks on all things “woke” seemed to be resonating with his party’s base. But since the announcement of his presidential candidacy, little has gone right for DeSantis. Missteps on key issues, lackluster performances on the stump, and effective tactics by the Trump campaign have combined to diminish support for DeSantis, and Trump’s once-narrow lead over him has ballooned to more than 41 points nationally and a smaller but still formidable 26 points in Iowa.

DeSantis’s decline has opened the door for other candidates vying to become Trump’s leading opponent. Broadly speaking, they have adopted one of three paths to success. Some, such as DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have remained close to Trump in both policy and rhetoric. They offer the Republican electorate Trumpism without the baggage of January 6, multiple lawsuits, and character flaws that repel a substantial portion of the electorate. Others — former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson — have adopted the opposite path, vigorously criticizing Trump on multiple fronts and promising the electorate something completely different.

A third group — former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley — has tried to split the difference, combining praise for Trump’s achievements while criticizing the most controversial aspects of his record. Thus far, Pence’s campaign has been hobbled by the anger of Trump supporters who see his refusal to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s election as a betrayal. By contrast, Scott has been able to stay above the fray, running a positive campaign featuring his compelling life story and distinctive role as the only Black candidate in the race. Haley also is distinctive as the only woman in the race and as a candidate who can speak with authority about international affairs — attributes that have not gotten her much attention up to now.

Did anything happen in the debate to change this picture?

To the surprise of no one, Chris Christie was the most forceful in his denunciations of Donald Trump’s conduct and may have created space for other candidates to move in his direction. At the same time, he had little distinctive to say about the other major issues and seems unlikely to have raised the low ceiling on his potential support.

Governor Burgum of North Dakota and former Governor Asa Hutchinson are decent and capable men who had difficulty even qualifying for the debate and are barely registering in the polls. They said nothing that seems likely to move sentiment in their favor, and Hutchinson’s references to his accomplishments during the Bush administration strengthened the impression that he is a man of his party’s past, not its future.

At the other end of the spectrum, the 38-year-old Ramaswamy emerged as the candidate of the New Right — the rising force within the conservative movement that rejects the Reagan model as unresponsive to the ills of contemporary American society. In a telling exchange, Mike Pence invoked the goodness of the American people and announced in Reaganesque tones that America’s best days lie ahead. Ramaswamy responded by saying that it isn’t morning in America anymore and that our dark times require nothing less than an American revolution (an unconscious echo of Bernie Sanders’ argument in a very different ideological direction).

Ramaswamy relentlessly attacked everyone else on the stage as bought and paid for creatures of their Super Pacs — and by staking out extreme positions on virtually every issue. This placed him at the center of the debate, but only because most other candidates rose to the bait and responded to his provocations. Clearly, their campaigns had decided that the candidates needed to engage him to stem his surge in the polls. But doing so may have backfired. The Republican primary electorate will have to decide whether to place their hopes for victory in the hands of someone with no experience in elective office or foreign policy and none of the personal maturity that the office of the presidency requires.

Mike Pence emerged as Ramaswamy’s principal antagonist, and nearly his equal in aggression. He vigorously defended the record of the Trump-Pence administration and often interrupted Ramaswamy to contest his claims. Despite this, Pence managed to convey experience and a measure of gravitas. In response to questions from the moderators, all the other candidates praised his role on January 6, some grudgingly, others (such as Chris Christie) enthusiastically. Were it not for the resentment that his actions stirred among pro-Trump Republicans, he might well be a leading candidate. Even so, he probably did himself some good during the debate.

Fighting to recover his position as Trump’s leading competitor, Ron Desantis turned in a focused, well-organized performance. He knew what he wanted to say and said it crisply. At the same time, he evaded several direct questions from the moderators and may have come across as calculating rather than candid. His willingness to send American troops across the southern border to fight Mexican drug cartels may play well in some parts of the Republican Party, but will subject him to further attacks for his inexperience in foreign policy. In a similar vein, he reaffirmed his reluctance to extend further aid to Ukraine.

Tim Scott continued to execute the strategy he has pursued through his campaign, affably presenting his inspiring biography and articulating a conventional conservative message in a home-spun manner. He remained positive, refusing to engage in the often-heated exchanges that consumed much of the debate. While he made no new enemies, he probably made few new friends and may have raised questions about his willingness to fight hard for his beliefs. By taking no risks, he may have wasted an opportunity to advance his candidacy.

By contrast, Nikki Haley was the surprise of the evening. She knew exactly what she wanted to say and said it with authority. She skillfully used her status as the only woman in the debate and pleaded for an approach to abortion based on consensus rather than confrontation, drawing a rebuke from Pence about the need for leadership on the issue to move opinion in a harder pro-life direction. Haley also used her foreign policy experience to good effect, making a well-reasoned case for continuing aid to Ukraine and pushing back against candidates who rejected it. In the end, Haley may have done the most of any candidate to exceed expectations. Whether it will advance her changes of emerging as Trump’s principal opponent remains to be seen.

While the eight Republicans were on stage — Twitter (now known as X) was playing a pre-taped one-on-one interview between Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump. The decision to allow Tucker Carlson to conduct this high-profile debate was ripe with irony, since during the recent trial against Fox News, emails were made public showing that Tucker Carlson hated Trump and couldn’t wait for the time when he wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.

No doubt the existence of those comments contributed to an interview that was lacking in tough questions and follow-up and oblivious to many of the issues of the day. The first topic of the interview was not the economy, it was not Joe Biden’s presidency — it was not even the “stolen” election. Trump opened by criticizing all the television networks and boldly predicting that his interview would have more viewers than the debate on Fox News.

What happened next was even stranger. After insulting his Republican challengers — for instance, calling Governor Asa Hutchinson “Ada” because he’s “weak and pathetic,” the former president spent several minutes on the sins of his former attorney general, Bill Barr, and on whether or not sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was killed in prison or whether he took his own life. Trump and Carlson clearly thought (without any new evidence) that Epstein was murdered, and Bill Barr had lied about it. The colloquy about Epstein will go down as one of the stranger moments in presidential history.

After that opening — Trump returned to a theme that the rest of his party has been pushing for some time — not only is Joe Biden a bad president, but that he’s old and demented too. Trump’s assessment: “He can’t lift his feet, he can’t walk on the grass, I think he looks terrible on the beach… every time you watch him talk, you’re waiting for him to collapse.” After the Epstein murder discussion, this was a gentle return to normality — at least Trump was doing what front-runners usually do — ignoring those way behind him in the race for the nomination and focusing on the general election.

From then on, the interview did turn to some issues — but they were mostly rear-view issues. Trump is clearly having a hard time looking forward. For instance, he insisted that his great relationship with Korean Supreme Leader Kim Un Jong was instrumental in preventing a nuclear war and that had Trump been president, Putin would never have invaded Ukraine. He was tough on China, although, instead of tying his positions to things that might be attractive to his midwestern industrial state voters (like the 10% tariff he had been talking about only days before), he spent most of his time bemoaning the fact that the United States sold the Panama Canal to Panama for $1 — more than four decades ago.

But true to form he could not sustain a discussion of issues and had to return to the fact that the election of 2020 was rigged against him by Democrats and RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). When he did discuss the issues briefly — it was to tell America that if it weren’t for his leadership at the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), officials would only allow a dribble of water out of your faucets and it would make you buy electric cars that are only good for 10 minutes.

Even towards the end of the interview, when Carlson asked him the simple question, “If elected, what would you do?” Trump couldn’t sustain a forward leaning answer. He started with immigration, pledging to throw all the criminals and mentally ill immigrants out of the country. But he immediately shifted back to the enormous amount of “love and passion” in the crowd he spoke to on January 6.

Trump talked easily and smoothly but had nothing new or fresh to say. Those who hoped he might pivot away from the past towards the future got very little from his counter programming to the Republican debate. Although several candidates in the debate evoked the need to pivot to the future, none offered any coherent ideas about the new agenda. Those who watched hoping to find out what the Republican party might offer them were left with many old ideas and few new ones. It is a truism in politics that voters want to know what you are going to do for them today and tomorrow. So far, the Republican field, especially the front-runner, is stuck in the past.

[crimechannels]

By • Olalekan Fagbade Yet-to-be-identified gunmen kidnapped a father, mother, daughter, and two other people along the ever-busy Mile 2 axis of the Ishiagu/Okigwe express road, Ebonyi State. Information gathered had it that the victims were said to be returning home from Enugu Airport with an airport taxi (Sienna Vehicle) with reg/no. KWL 941 PD before they were kidnapped at Mile 2 area, Ishiagu, and taken into the nearby bush by unknown gunmen. A source from the community who identified the victims disclosed the man’s name as Ajah Chibuzo, age 41, with his wife and his 12-year-old daughter.   Others kidnapped were the Enugu airport driver of the vehicle and the farmer the abductors picked from his farm, who took the others to the bush. The source also told Tribune Online that the victim’s car was recovered at the scene of the incident before the police recovered it and took it to Ishiagu Police Station. Recall that no fewer than 20 people have been kidnapped along the axis in the last 4 months, with about 4 killed by the rampaging kidnappers. The women of the community had, about a few months ago, staged a protest that later turned violent following the continued abduction of innocent residents of the area by the hoodlums. When contacted, the Special Assistant to the Ebonyi State Governor on Internal Security, Ivo Local Government Area of the State, Hon. Ike Cletus, who confirmed the abduction, expressed regret that the local government has become a safe haven for kidnappers and attributed it to the lack of functionality of the local Vigilante Group in the council. Hon. Cletus expressed the concern that, apart from the military personnel at the express road, the vigilante group set up by the council is not functional and calls for a total overhaul of the security architecture of the local government. His words: “It is unfortunate that Ivo Local Government has become a safe haven for kidnappers and other criminal elements. We have a non-functional vigilante group in the local government. read moreTribune Online2hEx-president’s wife, Patience Jonathan,visits first lady Remi Tinubu6 dead, 5 missing at Seplat Rig accident in Delta-Share Story AboutLogin You hardly see them anywhere in the local government, yet money is spent on them monthly without any fruitful result. “The security architecture of the local government, especially that of the local Vigilante Group, must be overhauled and made more efficient. “He maintained that the administration of Rt. Hon. Francis Nwifuru is determined to ensure the security of the lives and properties ofu to reach the Police public relations officer failed #daughter #Gunmen #Husband #kidnap #wife

[samuelreid]

𝕒𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕔

expensive suits, flashy car, designer everything. hair perfectly combed, and an eye-catching smile. constantly checking the time, every minute accounted for in his day, organized. meetings. lunch on the go. COFFEE. running. diapers and sleepless nights. MORE COFFEE. the minimalist style of his home hidden behind baby stuff. warmth. high-end technology. open files with scribbled notes on his desk. passing out on the couch with his baby on his chest. happy place.

𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕥𝕤

Full Name: Samuel Reid

Nicknames: Sam

Age & Birthday: 34 years; Sept 31st, 1988

Occupation: Defense Lawyer

Preferred Pronouns & Gender: He/him; cis-male

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Hometown & length of time in Whiskey Flats: Whiskey Flats, TX & lived here all of his life, but left for college

Neighborhood: Downtown

Family: Older Brother (41 - Airforce), Older Sister (36 - news anchor)

Accent: Soft Texan

TASKS | CONNECTIONS | PLAYLIST

Triggers: Death, Car Accident

𝕓𝕚𝕠𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕡𝕙𝕪

Sam was born into a wealthy and successful family with expectations always present. His father was a high-ranking judge, appointed as Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas under the Bush administration. His Mother was a former mayor of Whiskey Flats, and a popular one to boot. Not to mention his older brother’s successes in the airforce, a hero to many, then the local celebrity of his sister who was recently made head anchor at the Whiskey Flats news station. 

The pressure had always been on. Not to mention the influence of politics and religion in his upbringing. His father was a devoted Republican, and his mother was a devout Christian. The two resulted in a strict upbringing, which Sam rebelled against. He hated the stifling nature of his family. The tradition. The norms. All of it. 

In his teenage years, he found his tribe. A group of young kids (Sam the baby) who were troublesome and marched to their own tune. It was a relief from the restraints of his home life and a huge secret too. Anytime any of his friends asked to go to his place or pick him up, he always made excuses. He would carry around a backpack with an old hoody in it that he pulled on to hide his affluent lifestyle from the group. 

To keep his parents off the scent, he excelled in his school work. Anything to keep the little piece of freedom he had from being stole from him. He was captain of the football team and one of the best wrestlers in the state. Athleticism came with ease, but neither of his parents saw it as a potential career. Not for Reid. It hurt to give up on his dreams, but Sam couldn’t face the fight with his parents. Fighting with them about every political debate in the newspaper was enough to deal with. A fight about himself or what he wanted? That was a step too far. Instead, he would continue to sneak out and hang with his buddies, get drunk or high, then sneak home before anyone noticed. His older sister was the only one who knew, but she was so terrified of them both being caught in his mess, she did everything to cover for him. She was the only person Sam felt close to in his family, despite the love that was present. They loved a stranger - not the real Sam. 

One summer night, Sam and his friends had been partying and decided to end the night with a little joyride. His best friend was driving and lost control of the vehicle and it crashed, flipping so many times that Sam blacked out from the motion. Thankfully, he regained consciousness quick and he was able to pull himself from the wreckage. He had some cuts and bruises that would hurt the next day, but with adrenaline, he was able to ignore the pain to help his friends. The driver, his best friend, was non-responsive, and Sam knew he had a decision to make. The fuel tank was leaking and there was a fire, so they had minutes. It was intense and he hated every second of it, seconds that felt like hours, but also like time was running away from him. The girl of the group, Sam's longest friend and best friend's girlfriend was coming around, so he knew he could save her. It was a choice. His best friend or the girl he had known most of his life. His best friend who wasn’t breathing and bleeding bad or the girl who was breathing and could survive. In an instant, Sam was by her side and doing his best to calm her and rationalize with her, but it was traumatic. He eventually pulled her out of the car and carried her to safety, where he collapsed. The pain and trauma finally set in as the car burst into flames behind them. 

To say that ignited something within him would be a cheap shot at the trauma of the night, but it had. Sam almost lost his life because of this need to rebel against his parents. From then on in, he buckled down and listened to the wisdom of his family. He left Whiskey Flats to return to college, focused on his school work, and graduated with the highest honors. His parents were never more proud than when he told them he was going to Harvard Law. The next few years were spent in Massachusetts away from the pain of that night, educating and learning, becoming the best man he could be. 

The time to return to Whiskey Flats did eventually come. His parents had used their connections to get him an internship with a friend's law firm, which meant facing those faces again. The town again. The pain again. The question of who he was again… 

Now he is a young defense lawyer trying to distract himself from his own struggles with his work and the injustices of Whiskey Flats. Fighting others' battles was much easier than fighting his own. 

𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖

1988: born 1994: met best friend (the girl in the accident) 2001: met group of friends 2006: went off to college 2008: the accident 2013: finished law school 2014: joined a local law firm as an intern / passed the bar exam 2020: made partner at the firm 2022 to now: investigating the local justice system whilst adopting to new dad duties with an ex-girlfriend whom he co-parents with

[xtruss]

Vladimir Putin and Presidents: “The Bullshits of World’s Deadliest Warmonger & Criminal John Bolton,” Former National Security Adviser

John Bolton served as national security adviser to President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019. He was previously the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and is the author of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir. The following interview was conducted by the Kirk Documentary Group’s Michael Wiser for FRONTLINE on Sept. 29, 2022. It has been edited for clarity and length.

Bush’s Assessment of Putin

As the [George W.] Bush administration comes in, Vladimir Putin is a new president of Russia. He’d only been there for a year. What was the assessment, and what did you make of Vladimir Putin?

Well, I think at the very beginning of the Bush ’43 administration, we had high hopes that with the end of the Warsaw Pact, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the progress that we thought Russia had made both in moving toward a more politically democratic society and a more market-oriented society, that there were all kinds of possibilities. And we approached it from the strategic perspective as an opportunity to reorient away from the Cold War and to concentrate on the new threats that we thought were emerging. And we thought Putin would be sympathetic to that, and particularly after 9/11, we thought that there were real possibilities.

So I worked on getting the United States out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, because we didn’t think we had a direct strategic threat from Russia, but we did want to protect the United States with a limited missile defense system against rogue states like Iran, Iraq and North Korea. We thought Russia would share that view. We thought there was an opportunity to negotiate lower levels of nuclear weapons, which we accomplished, and then to work together in the fight against terrorism. So if you look on a broad range of issues, from that perspective, we were optimistic at the beginning.

I mean, of course, he was a former KGB agent. He does have a democratic crackdown early on. And there’s the famous meeting that a lot of people talk about, between President Bush and President Putin, where [President Bush] said he looked into [Putin's] soul. What were you thinking when you saw that interaction between the two presidents?

I wasn’t in the administration yet. I hadn’t been confirmed yet. But I was a little surprised by that. Didn’t bother me that Putin was KGB. I think we saw that many of the officials in Russia were ex-KGB, because they were the most entrepreneurial and creative of all the Soviet bureaucracies. The rest of them were kind of dull and conformist, but in the KGB, you were taught to think for yourself. So actually, that struck us as an opportunity.

I don’t think anybody was looking at this through rose-colored glasses, but we thought at the strategic level, there were real opportunities to work together. And many of us were alumni of the Bush ’41 administration, where Jim Baker and Eduard Shevardnadze, George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev had really set the tone after the end of the Cold War, and we thought there was at least a good possibility we could continue that progress.

I mean, you write in your book that, even back then, there’s a meeting between Putin, Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld, where he’s talking about Russia being part of NATO. Were they serious?

Yeah. This was a meeting, the first time I met Putin, within about a month or a month and a half after the 9/11 attacks. And in the Clinton administration, they had created a joint permanent council between NATO and Russia. The Russians were very dissatisfied with it. When Rumsfeld met with Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defense minister, Ivanov said, “It’s rubbish. It’s worse than the U.N. General Assembly.” So I was pretty sympathetic to that point. I thought there were ways that cooperation could be increased, and it turned out that that proved to be wrong. But in those early days, particularly in the wake of 9/11, we were seeking to find out what was possible.

I mean, it’s interesting, you do write in there, too, that one of the things that Putin is saying is, “We were being pushed out of the system of civilized Western defense.” Was there a sense even back then at that point that Russia felt a little bit insecure or felt like they weren’t going to be as big a player or that maybe things were progressing without them?

Well, I think they were concerned. And indeed, the argument we made on the ABM Treaty was that we should both withdraw from it, that we didn’t think either one threatened the other. We weren’t looking for a Reagan-style Star Wars initiative, but we wanted a sufficient missile defense capability to protect against the rogue states or accidental missile launches. We felt Russia would see it was threatened by Islamic terrorism, and it would be something we could cooperate on.

I mean, it’s interesting, looking back with hindsight at Vladimir Putin, because the U.S., it seems, legitimately did not believe that Russia was a major security threat given the other threats out there, but that Putin, at least as he would describe the situation by the end of the Bush administration, sees the U.S. as a threat. Was there an asymmetric sense of threat that Vladimir Putin had? Did he understand how America perceived Russia?

Well, I think we were very open with him, that proposing, as I say, that we jointly withdraw from the ABM Treaty. We were the only two parties to it, so if one of us withdrew, which the U.S. ultimately did, there wasn’t any treaty anymore. But we thought the symbolic value of both of us rejecting the treaty would show we had reached common ground on the nature of the threat from rogue states.

I think something changed in Putin’s mind between 2001 and 2006, ’07, somewhere in there, by the end of the Bush administration. But in those early days, he acquiesced in U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. He didn’t have Russia withdraw as well, but he didn’t fundamentally object to it. We reached a strategic weapons agreement, the Treaty of Moscow, as we called it, that brought down the limit on deployed strategic weapons pretty substantially. That seemed to be a plus.

And we were working—we thought we were working with the Russians mutually against the Iranian nuclear threat, the North Korean nuclear threat. I think some of the difficulty emerged after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. I think that may have been something that Putin felt had consequences for him. But we didn’t feel it had consequences for him other than positive ones. It was one more rogue regime that had been eliminated.

So let’s talk about that. But before that, you are in Moscow on Sept. 17 of 2001, I think. What was the response from Vladimir Putin about Sept. 11, about how he saw his opportunities, or how he saw his relationship with the United States?

Yeah, that was a trip I had actually been scheduled to begin on Sept. 11. Obviously commercial air flights were shut down, and even by the end of the week of Sept. 11, I flew on a military plane, because there was no way to get there commercially. The first meeting I had, I think, in Moscow was with the deputy national security adviser, and it was about 9:00 in the morning. But we had the U.S. side and the Russian side. They brought out a tray full of glasses of vodka, and they toasted the United States and wished us well in the wake of the attack. So at that point, there was certainly a feeling that they shared the nature of the threat from Islamic terrorism with us and that they were willing to work together on it.

… We talked to somebody who was at the State Department focused on that area and we said, like, “What happened?” And they said, “Well, Afghanistan and Iraq happened, and we were not paying as much attention at a high level to Russia,” which was sort of what Putin was expecting. Do you agree with that assessment?

No, I don’t agree with that assessment. I think we paid plenty of attention to Russia. I can say in my own case, I went to Moscow so often that the people at the desk of the Marriott Hotel on Tverskaya, where we always stayed, would say, “Ah, Mr. Bolton, welcome back. We have your favorite room for you,” which I knew what that meant. But they received a lot of attention from President Bush, Secretary of State [Colin] Powell, Condi Rice. The Afghan decision was one that they supported.

And the first trip after 9/11 that Rumsfeld took, I accompanied him, and we met with Putin. That was the first time I met with him. And he was very strong on wanting to cooperate to deal with this threat of Islamic terrorism, which they saw in the Central Asian Republics, threatening them in Russia. And we had later examples of it at Beslan and other terrorist attacks inside Russia.

So at that point, it did look like we had a convergence of interests. Now, there was a disagreement on Iraq, but—that’s for sure. But we had disagreements with the French and the Germans on Iraq as well. And I think France, Germany and Russia were all wrong in their position. But again, that didn’t seem to signal a strategic shift away from Russia, because there were others in Europe who took essentially the same view.

Nonetheless, I think we can see in hindsight that it was about that point that we began to lose the feeling that Russia really wanted to integrate more closely with the West. And shortly after that, Putin changed his attitude on, for example, the ABM Treaty, which he had acquiesced in in 2001, but by 2007, 2008 was saying it’s aimed against Russia, which he knew not to be true. It was aimed against—the positioning in the Czech Republic and Poland were directed against the threats from Iran and Iraq. Missile defense against Russia we put in Canada and North America. We don’t put it in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

Putin’s World View

What is it like to be in a meeting with Vladimir Putin? We’ve heard the story about he’s warm with Bush, but we’ve talked to other people who say, even back then, he could be dismissive, you know, lean back in his chair; he could be argumentative. What did you see when you were in a meeting with Vladimir Putin?

Well, I didn’t, frankly, see much change in behavior from the first time I met him in late 2001 to the last time I met him in 2019. He’s tough, and he’s cold-blooded. But he’s professional. He always seemed confident. And he understood English, which is always an advantage. He didn’t usually speak in English. He allowed his interpreter to do the translation, but he knew what we were saying, and then he could listen again when his interpreter translated it. Occasionally he would correct his interpreter in English when she was translating what he said. But he was always very direct.

In the first meeting with Rumsfeld after 9/11, he talked about Russia’s experience with Taliban and other terrorists in the region. And at one point, he said to Rumsfeld, the Taliban had asked Russia for something, and Putin said, “We told them exactly this,” and he used that gesture. And we were all a little surprised by that. Rumsfeld thought for a second; he said, “Well, we don’t do it quite the same way, but we get the point.”

That’s interesting. I mean, some of the biographers and people who have studied Putin say that one of the things he learned from Yeltsin and Gorbachev and others was strength, that he wanted to project strength. Was that what you saw from him?

Well, I think he felt that Russia was an important player in the world, and he wanted to show confidence. But I didn’t see it as posturing; I saw it as somebody who was sitting on top of 5,000 or 10,000 nuclear warheads and knew he had the strength. I can tell you, in the Bush ’41 administration, my counterpart for part of that was Sergey Lavrov, who’s now the foreign minister of Russia. And the first time I met to meet with Lavrov in Moscow, I got material on what he was like and so on. And one part of it said, “We assess”—this is before the collapse of the Soviet Union—but it said, “We assess that Lavrov is not a Communist,” which is pretty amazing. And then it said, “We assess that he is a czarist.” And I think that is true of Lavrov, true in 1990 and true today. And I think it’s true of Putin, too.

… Do you think that the color revolutions, which is a pattern, these protests in what they call the “near abroad,” and a sense, people tell us, of Putin feeling like these things could come to them, and a link to the United States, in his own mind—do you think that was part of it back then, back in 2003-2004?

I would put it differently. I think Putin and many people around him, and many people in Russia to this day, think that the breakup of the Soviet Union was illegitimate. They think Yeltsin made a catastrophic mistake when he declared Russia independent in effect at the end of 1991, and that Putin and these others believed that these countries, or certainly large chunks of them, had to be brought back into Mother Russia. And Putin himself said that very clearly, although I don’t think we recognized it clearly enough at the time. But he said, in 2005, the breakup of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

I think we all felt it was a pretty good way to end the 20th century. He obviously had a different point of view. The color revolutions were just another manifestation of the basic problem, that these countries shouldn’t be independent to begin with, not because Putin wanted to recreate a communist Soviet Union; he wanted to recreate the Rodina, the Mother Russia that he believed in. And I think that’s what he’s still trying to do today.

And how did America approach this? I mean, he seems to believe he has a sphere of influence, the way America might have a sphere of influence in part of the world. And did the Bush administration follow that? Was there conflict over that question of whether Russia should have an ability to influence the near abroad?

Well, you know, you have to have—you have to take into account what the near abroad thinks of all this. I mean, we’ve got a sphere of influence in Canada, but we don’t tell them what to do. I mean, they tell us what to do more than we tell them what to do, in a sense. And these countries, certainly the former members of the Warsaw Pact, wanted protection from Russia. They’re the ones that joined NATO.

We didn’t extend NATO’s border toward Russia. They were knocking on our door from the minute the Warsaw Pact began to collapse. NATO’s problem was, we didn’t decide what the endpoint would be, and we left a gray zone in many places that Putin is now exploiting. But it wasn’t because we had designs on Russia; it’s because the former Warsaw Pact members and former parts of the Soviet Union, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, wanted protection against Russia.

North Atlantic Terrorist Organization (NATO) as a Deterrent to Putin

… You’re, I think, just out by the time he goes to Munich and delivers that speech in 2007. What are you thinking when you’re watching it? And by that point, is it a surprise what he says about America?

No. I think by 2007-2008, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the optimism we had in 2001 was no longer justifiable, and it was going to be a kind of 19th-century power politics controversy in Europe. And it was at that point—I had left the Bush administration by then, but at that point that Bush said correctly, I think, in April of 2008, at the Bucharest NATO summit, that Ukraine and Georgia should be brought on a fast track toward NATO membership. This is the answer to the question, what do you do with the gray-zone countries? In Central Europe, it’s Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. NATO has accepted as members everybody else up to that frontier, but there’s a gap between NATO’s eastern border and Russia’s western border. And Bush said, “Let’s answer the question. We’re going to bring certainly Ukraine, and Georgia as well, and the Caucasus into NATO, and that will close the border question.” And Germany and France objected. It was a big mistake.

Four months later, four months later, Russia invades Georgia. I mean, you don’t get many laboratory experiments in international affairs. But this showed what happened by not taking the next logical step and bringing those countries into NATO, because neither the Soviet Union nor Russia had ever crossed a NATO border with armed forces, never once. That’s why today Finland and Sweden want to join NATO, because they know that the only real defense is to have a NATO border with Russia.

But by 2008, as Bush is making that decision, and apparently it’s a very lively debate inside the administration, they know, at this point, that that will upset Russia. That Russia will see that as a threat?

Yes. And what would Russia do about that threat? Would they cross a NATO border and risk war with NATO? The answer Finland and Sweden have just given us is they don’t think so. I think you can make a very strong case, there would not have been a Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 or a Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 if we had brought Ukraine into NATO quickly, or it was clear they were coming into NATO quickly. You leave a gray zone in between, as we did, unfortunately, you leave room for trouble.

And who’s responsible for that compromise, for that gray zone? I mean, it may have been better to do nothing than to say an undefined—they can come in at some point. But we’re not going to offer them NATO protection. Where does the responsibility lie for that?

I think the responsibility, going back to 2008, lies very clearly with France and Germany. Just like I think the crisis Europe has today with energy lies with France and Germany. The idea that you could, by increasing trade with Russia and not being threatening, that you’d have a greater chance for peace in Europe, absolutely wrong.

It’s becoming clear after that that the chance of an invasion of Georgia is possible. And Secretary Rice says, you know, “We stand by our friends.” Apparently privately she’s warning Georgia not to provoke Vladimir Putin. But how much of a test is that? What is going on? Is Putin testing the United States’ resolve, NATO’s resolve at that moment?

Well, I think it was a test, and I think we failed. And I think it said to him, “Here is a method by which I can ensure these countries never get into NATO.” He expanded the concept of frozen conflict, which existed in different parts of the former Soviet Union, where there were still what were then Russian troops on the soil of countries like Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Central Asian Republics. The NATO rule for many years, and still is, you don’t admit a new member to NATO that’s already engaged in a conflict, because you’re starting a war; you’re entering a war when you admit somebody. So in Putin’s mind, seemed pretty clear. The more countries he can get Russian troops into, the more he’s got a veto over the expansion of NATO.

I mean, should we have seen what was coming at that point, in 2008, after he intervenes or invades Georgia? Should we have had a sense of where this was headed?

I think that was a real wake-up call that we missed given who was elected president in 2008. If you look at the reaction in August of 2008 of candidate Obama and candidate John McCain, McCain instantly criticized Russia and called for U.S. support for Georgia. Obama’s first response, which is the true test of what he really believes, is to call on both sides to exercise restraint. So, you know, Russia, you exercise restraint, and Georgia, you exercise restraint. Well, who’s kidding whom here? Who’s kidding whom here?

And I think that was the response that Putin and the Russians read. And they said, “Obama is going to be weak.” And I think that was the predecessor moment for what became the invasion of 2014, where the Obama administration response was weak, again, laying the groundwork for 2022.

Putin During the Obama Years

I mean, as you’re watching, you’ve had this progression. You thought that maybe that Vladimir Putin is a guy we can work with, and by the time the Bush administration is ending, this seems like a guy who sees America as an enemy and is bent on some kind of empire building. And then you’re watching the Obama administration come in, and they have a “reset” button, and they say, “We’re going to start it all over again.” What is it like to watch that, having lived through the Bush administration’s experience with Vladimir Putin?

Well, it was to me a proof of Winston Churchill’s comment about the “confirmed unteachability of mankind.” The whole idea, the reset button, that our relations with Russia were bad because of the performance of the Bush administration, misread it entirely. And in fact, at the very ceremony where Hillary Clinton gave Sergey Lavrov the reset button, he humiliated her. He said, “The Russian words you’ve used translate incorrectly,” and she just laughed, and the administration didn’t get it. That’s the Russians saying, “We’ve got your measure.”

And when you hear these comments from Obama, that Russia is a regional power, he says to Mitt Romney, “The 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back,” what message was that sending, as you were watching that?

Well, I think the Russians were laughing uproariously. I mean, they said, “This guy obviously doesn’t understand what’s going on.” I think they watched his foreign policy generally and concluded that he would not respond effectively if they took strong action to do what they had been talking about really since 2006-2007, which is recreate the Russian Empire. And their foray into Ukraine in 2014 was mixed for them. They got the Crimea back. But they ran into real Ukrainian opposition in the Donbas, and they did not take nearly as much territory the first time as they hoped to.

But what was the Western response? Insignificant sanctions. So that said to the Russians, “We’ve got another opportunity here when the time is right. They didn’t sanction us significantly after the attack in Georgia. They didn’t sanction us significantly after the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. We can keep pushing because it’s an open door.”

And that debate inside the Obama administration, over Javelins and arming Ukraine, how important was that?

I think that said to the Russians, “They can’t make up their mind whether they believe Ukraine is of strategic importance to the United States. In Moscow, we know it’s of strategic importance to us, so that we’ve got the momentum on our side that we can dictate the direction of policy here.”

Do you think there’s another signal sent at this moment, during the 2016 elections, when the intelligence agencies conclude Russia is involved in interference? How do you evaluate the Obama administration’s response and how Vladimir Putin understood that?

Well, I don’t think they took effective measures to respond. I think what the Russians were trying to do was sow discontent and cynicism about American institutions, and I think they did an unfortunately pretty good job about it. And the Obama administration didn’t really respond effectively, because their view of cyberspace was that it was kind of the Garden of Eden, and the last thing they wanted to do was weaponize cyberspace.

So they had developed procedures for decision-making on offensive cyber operations that centralized control in the White House and meant essentially there weren’t any offensive cyber operations, and so the Russians took advantage of that throughout the 2016 election period.

War Criminal and World’s Deadliest Warmonger John Bolton, U.S. National Security Advisor, sits for an interview and delivers remarks at an event organized by the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association-Brigade 2506, on the failed invasion's 58th anniversary, in Miami, Fl., on April 17, 2019. Mark Peterson/Redux

Putin’s Relationship with Trump

And then Donald Trump is elected. And as he’s elected, and Vladimir Putin is watching that, what do you think—or what do you know he’s concluding about how things have changed in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia?

Well, I think Putin, like everybody else in the world, could see that Trump seemed to admire strong authoritarian leaders—Putin, Xi Jinping, [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan. He had a love affair with Kim Jong-un. This probably struck people in the affected capitals as being about as strange as it struck most Americans, and I think it opened to Putin lines of thought about how to take advantage of it. He also saw how Trump treated the NATO alliance and believed that Trump could be a figure that would weaken NATO, which would make anything else Russia wanted to do in the struggle over the former Soviet Union much easier.

Do you think that he respected Donald Trump when the two of them are in a meeting, a private meeting together? How does he evaluate Trump?

I think Putin thought Trump was a fool and easily manipulable if he could get him in the right situation. And I don’t think that’s dissimilar from what many other authoritarian foreign leaders thought.

What about Donald Trump, his attitude towards Putin, which was public, and towards Russia, and what was going on when you were there, at the policy level, and even before you were there? Was there a split of the president’s rhetoric and what American policy was towards Vladimir Putin?

Well, there are a lot of aspects of American policy. The most important thing to understand is that Trump doesn’t do policy, that that’s not how he approached dealing with foreign leaders, particularly adversaries. It was, what was his personal relationship with Vladimir Putin in this case? And he believed that he had a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin, that the United States and Russia had a good relationship. Now, I’m not discounting the importance of personal relationships, but Vladimir Putin is as clear-eyed and cold-blooded as any foreign leader I have ever seen. He knows exactly what he thinks Russia’s national interest is, and he pursues it unrelentingly. So confronted with Donald Trump, this is like an open field in front of a football player carrying the football. And I think Trump never understood that, never understood what the nature of Putin’s game was. And we should all be thankful that Putin wasn’t more adventurous than he turned out to be.

There were reports, though, that Vladimir Putin did not cease to see the United States as a threat, and in fact that part of his view of the world is that people like you were running American foreign policy in an anti-Russia way and that Trump was sort of a figurehead. Did you get either intelligence on that? Did you get a perception that that was how he saw things?

Well, I think Putin could distinguish between Trump the personality and the United States as a country and what the U.S. strengths were and what obstacles they posed to him. And in the meetings I had with Putin, where we talked about things like arms control, issues like that, that he enjoyed talking about because it showed Russia was still a great power, I thought we had conversations where we didn’t agree very much, but they were very professional and about what you’d expect to have at the Putin level.

Those talks didn’t occur when he met with Trump. They talked about other things. At the Helsinki summit, most of the time, it was in their one-on-one meeting, it was Putin talking about Syria, and issues that would have been discussed with prior presidents didn’t come up. So I think the Russians understood that in the person of Donald Trump, they had a very unusual American president. Didn’t mean that anything else in America had changed. And so therefore, in that sense, their calculations remained the same. But they saw Trump as somebody who was in the wrong job at the wrong time, and they wanted to figure out how to take advantage of him.

Vladimir Putin had seen NATO as a threat, at least going back to 2007. And Donald Trump comes in, and what is his attitude towards NATO? And how do you think Vladimir Putin was perceiving the public comments of candidate Trump and then President Trump, and his general attitude towards NATO?

Well, I don’t think Trump had an idea what NATO was as a collective defense organization or that the United States was leading it. Trump made one very correct, very important point, which was many NATO members were not spending adequately on defense, and he pounded away on that. And it did produce a better result in terms of what many countries were doing.

But it wasn’t because Trump was trying to strengthen NATO. I think he saw it basically as one way to justify getting out of NATO. And I think as Putin followed, and his people followed Western press accounts of what Trump said at NATO meetings, what he’d said in private, what people speculated about his negative feelings on NATO, Putin looked at that, and in the old saying, don’t interfere when your opponent is committing suicide. So he wasn’t going to test exactly how strong NATO was; he was going to let Trump continue to undermine it. And I think he was really waiting to see, in a second Trump term, would he go all the way and actually withdraw from NATO?

As you’re watching that trip right before Helsinki, in Brussels, with [Jens] Stoltenberg, and the president [Trump] is dressing him down and criticizing Germany. And his points may be valid in retrospect, but it’s a very public criticism of … the secretary general of NATO, of a key ally. What are you thinking as you’re watching that display?

It was hard to believe it was happening. But having observed Trump, even in the few months I had been in the administration at that point, I could see that we were on very dangerous ground. And in fact, the next day, Trump said he was ready to withdraw from NATO, and throughout that day, I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t going to announce it right there.

And so were you then in a desperate attempt to convince him of the importance of NATO and of the alliance?

Well, it was all hands on deck, there’s no doubt about that. But what we were trying to do was find some way to persuade him not to raise the subject. One lesson I learned was that it doesn’t make much sense to argue with Trump about the merits of a particular issue. It’s much better to argue the political benefits of him doing the right thing rather than trying to convince him it’s the right thing.

So at that point, I think Mike Pompeo and I concluded the best thing to argue was, don’t get in a fight over NATO when you’ve got a Supreme Court nomination at stake back in the United States. Ultimately that day, Trump did not say he was withdrawing from NATO. He came very close to it, but he didn’t actually say it. I don’t know whether the arguments we made to him were enough to persuade him it was politically unwise, but I think, in Putin’s mind, he didn’t know all the inside details, but he could see from the optics reported in the press that this had been a very serious encounter. And from Putin’s point of view, I think he was content to let that play out and see how much damage might actually occur.

I mean, you concluded, and presumably Vladimir Putin concluded, that this relationship seemed to be so strained that there was a real chance that the U.S., at some point, would pull out of that alliance.

I believe that if Trump had won a second term, freed at that point of really any political constraint—he would never face the voters again—he would have done a lot of things in his second four years that people can only imagine. And I do think that withdrawal from NATO was a very distinct possibility. So if you’re Vladimir Putin, and you see even a possibility that that might happen, or you certainly see NATO being substantially weakened, you’re going to withhold action until you see how much your opponent is going to dismantle their own defense structures. Because once that happens, it’s very hard to put back together again, and Russia’s flexibility is significantly increased.

And when you say withhold action, you mean that’s why he wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine during this period, because why do it if he could let it all fall apart?

Yeah. I think most foreign observers, like most people in the United States, felt that Trump was likely to get a second term. It turned out he didn’t, because of COVID perhaps, because of other reasons. But in forward strategic thinking, if they thought in the Kremlin that Trump was going to get another four years, they weren’t in any hurry to do anything.

So when you then fly to Helsinki, are you concerned about—because you know that there’s a lot of emphasis on what happens in the private meetings between Trump and Putin. What was your concerns at the time, as you go into a moment like that?

Well, I was worried that Putin would want to spend a lot of time with Trump on strategic arms control issues, about which Trump knew very little. So I tried to prepare Trump for that, not terribly successfully, I guess, but it turned out, in the private meeting, the one-on-one meeting just with interpreters, Putin did 90% of the talking, and most of that was about the situation in Syria and the Middle East. So when we heard that, both from what Trump said to us when he came out of the meeting and what my staff found out from our interpreter after the meeting, I breathed a sigh of relief.

What was his demeanor towards Trump? How did he present himself? Because, as I’ve said, we’ve heard different versions of Putin. How did he relate to Donald Trump? Was he warm with him?

I don’t think Putin is a particularly warm person. I think he dealt with him professionally. I don’t think there was any theater, at least in the meetings I was in. I didn’t have any theater from Putin in the meetings that I had with him by myself or without the president. I just didn’t see much theater. I think he was constantly trying to judge Trump’s reactions. That’s what KGB agents do very successfully. And I think he thought he had the upper hand, but he didn’t display it. He wasn’t arrogant about it. I could just sense confidence, that he knew what he was dealing with.

And the American president’s demeanor around Vladimir Putin?

About as unserious as it usually is. I mean, as I say, there are not extensive policy discussions in meetings that Trump had with Putin or that he had with him over the telephone. There were very few trade issues to discuss. Trump loved to discuss trade with the Chinese, but there wasn’t much trade with Russia to discuss. So it really was Putin trying to pursue his agenda more than anything else.

And when you watched that famous moment about who do you believe, and he seems to suggest that, “Why would I not believe Vladimir Putin?,” what was your reaction as you were watching that?

Well, I think I felt frozen to my chair. Like everybody else in the room, we couldn’t believe it. And I describe in my book, we went into sort of damage control. I was worried that Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, might resign at that point. He would have been fully justified to resign if he had wanted to. And actually, the next day Trump came up, when we were back in Washington, and said, “You know, I misspoke, and I left the word ‘not’ out,” which would have changed the meaning of what he said 180 degrees.

Well, how did the accusations of Russian interference affect him in his relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin?

Well, Trump took the accusations of Russian interference through the prism of the arguments about Russia collusion, that he had colluded with the Russians, and he saw admitting any potential of Russian interference as acquiescing in the accusation that he conspired with the Russians to win the election. I and many others tried to explain to him that that was wrong, that he was on very strong ground to say that there had been Russian efforts to interfere in the election. It would not have undercut the legitimacy of his victory and that he would have been better off saying what we felt and what we were doing, I think, throughout the bureaucracy, that we were going to resist not just the efforts of Russia but China or anybody else, any foreign actor who tried to interfere in our election. That was the right policy, and it wouldn’t undercut the legitimacy of the Trump election in 2016 if he said the same thing. But we never persuaded him.

U.S. Policy on ‘West’s Puppet Ukraine’

… Well, let’s talk about Ukraine. The Obama administration had imposed some sanctions but had not sent Javelins and other types of weapons to Ukraine. What was the Trump administration’s policy towards Ukraine in that regard?

Well, I don’t think Trump had much of a policy toward Ukraine until he began to think of it as a place where Biden and Hillary Clinton had worked in 2016, and were working, looking at the 2020 campaign, to affect him politically. At the Cabinet level, the National Security Council level, I think people were very strongly of the view that we should do a lot more to support Ukraine, to try and work to deter any notion that the Russians might try another invasion, that there were a number of other things unrelated to Ukraine that Russia was doing, that warranted American sanctions and tougher action, and in particular in the cyber warfare area, to get America into a place where we could make decisions about offensive cyber operations and not fear weaponizing the Garden of Eden of cyberspace. Cyberspace is no different from any other human domain. And the best defense is often a good offense to deter the Russians and others, to show you will pay costs if you attack us in cyberspace.

So I think, although there was certainly a lot more we could have done, that much of the actual American policy toward Russia in the Trump administration got stronger and stronger—not strong enough by a long shot, though.

You felt like before 2019, that your approach to Ukraine was stronger against Russia than the Obama administration’s was.

And Trump himself would boast about it, because he could say, “We’re supplying Javelins to Ukraine, and the Obama administration different.” Anytime you could convince Trump he was doing something Obama hadn’t, forget the policy reasons for it, it was a good argument to make.

Vladimir Putin had talked about Ukraine as not a country. He had talked about it as corrupt. How was Donald Trump talking about Ukraine, and did it seem like he was mirroring some of the descriptions of the country that Vladimir Putin had been making?

I don’t think Trump fully understood the history of Ukraine and Russia, or the Soviet Union before that, or much else in history. He once asked John Kelly, White House chief of staff, if Finland were still part of Russia, which would have been news to the Finns if anybody had told them that. So I don’t think any of this complexity and the reasons for the animosity between Ukraine and Russia really crossed his mind. I think what drew his attention to Ukraine was the notion that the famous DNC server was somewhere in Ukraine, that Hunter Biden worked for Burisma, that the Ukrainians had attacked him in the 2016 campaign, and that he wanted to get to the bottom of it. That’s what drew his attention to Ukraine, and that’s what ultimately caused the problem with the shipment of $250 million of security assistance that generated the controversy that led to the first impeachment.

So what happened? How did you learn that things were being held up or things were going to be held up?

Well, as I describe in the book, it emerged only in bits and pieces, because Trump was working outside the regular system. He had Rudy Giuliani and other attorneys who were dealing with Ukrainian representatives on searching for the DNC server and the missing laptop and all the other bowl of spaghetti allegations out there. And he had an irregular group of people, including Gordon Sondland and others, who was the ambassador to the European Union in Brussels, of which Ukraine is not a member, dealing with the Ukrainians. And it was all about the politics of how Ukraine had, in Trump’s mind, affected the 2016 election and could affect the 2020 election.

And somehow or another, in the summer of 2019, Trump learned of the security assistance that had been committed by statute for delivery to Ukraine, and he decided to hold it up, perhaps because OMB. Mick Mulvaney was the acting chief of staff, former OMB Director. That may have been the way that was communicated to him. And it was only in really June, July, August that the pieces of this puzzle began to come together.

I think in Trump’s mind, it was clear all along. He was looking for ways to pressure Ukraine to get the DNC server and expose Biden and Hunter Biden and whatever else he was trying to do politically. And for the rest of us who were just trying to get the $250 million in security assistance delivered before it expired on Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, that’s when we began to see something was going wrong. And I think Mark Esper, the secretary of defense, Mike Pompeo, myself, when we came to see it were completely unified that we wanted that security assistance delivered.

But I mean, just to be really clear, he was holding up the security assistance in order to get these politically motivated investigations?

Yeah, there was no question about it. This was Trump using the powers of the presidency really for his own political advantage, and I think that became clear. It seemed so hard to understand why Rudy Giuliani wanted to talk about Hunter Biden and Burisma and what that had to do with security assistance, and the answer is, it didn’t have anything to do with it in terms of American foreign policy, but it did for the Trump reelection campaign.

And how dangerous was it for Ukraine at that moment, if that had expired, that authorization?

Well, we would have lost the $250 million, because that’s the nature of the end of the fiscal year in federal budget policy. So we were bending every effort, talking to members of Congress, saying, “You need to talk to the president; we’re going to lose this money,” as the end of the fiscal year approached, and trying to persuade Trump that whatever else he was doing with respect to his own political prospects, he needed to let the money go. And eventually that happened, I think actually on Sept. 11 of 2019.

Let me just ask you, because we had spoken to her, when the ambassador, [Marie] Yovanovitch, is removed, what’s your understanding for the reason why?

Well, I think Giuliani and others had told Trump that she was anti-Trump, that she was not cooperating with their efforts to investigate the bowl of spaghetti of allegations about what the Ukrainians were up to and that they wanted her out.

And when this all becomes public, and the call is released, and the hearings happen, what is the effect on how a Vladimir Putin would perceive what was going on?

Well, I think Putin would look at this and it would be further evidence that the only thing Trump cares about is Trump, and therefore that’s an insight about how to deal with Trump in a second term. So it would have been confirmation that Trump didn’t do American foreign policy; he did Trump policy. And I think it would have strengthened Putin’s belief that, if Trump were reelected—which, again, if you look back at that timing, late 2019/early 2020, before COVID, most people thought it was likely, that he would have another four years to take advantage of Trump.

Putin’s View of America

If you look at Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric about America, it’s certainly in the Munich speech but many of his speeches about America, he talks about hypocrisy. Before the invasion of Ukraine, he will talk about the “empire of lies,” and he portrays an America that is hypocritical, that says it believes in democracy and the rule of law and all of these things, but doesn’t. Was there a way that Donald Trump with this phone call, for example, but his presidency in general, seems to be reaffirming the things that Putin had been saying about America all along?

Well, I think Trump said a number of things not just in the Russian context, but said them publicly during the 2016 campaign and during his presidency, where somebody would criticize the performance of another country, and Trump would say, “Well, what about us? You think we’re so great?” In other words, acknowledging the kind of moral equivalence and hypocrisy that Putin and others would point out.

And I think although Trump once took a picture, famously, hugging the American flag for political purposes, holding the Bible up in Lafayette Square, I think he was very cynical about the United States.

And the message that that sent about America, and about whether those principles that all of the other American presidents had expressed about democracy and rule of law and international order, what was the effect on America’s credibility when Donald Trump would say something like that, where, like, “Vladimir Putin is a killer, I think,” and then he [Trump] says, “Well, we have killers, too.”

Well, I don’t think it affected America’s credibility except to the extent that foreign leaders thought Trump was representative of American thought further down. And my own view, and since I left the White House I haven’t hesitated to say it, is that Trump is an aberration, and therefore that it shouldn’t have—whatever he did should not have an effect on people’s view about what America’s underlying views are.

You think it shouldn’t, but did it rattle our allies?

I think it gave some of our more cynical allies a chance to take advantage of it. I think I would single out President [Emmanuel] Macron of France, who a few months before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, said NATO was brain-dead, and he was reflecting what he thought Trump’s view was. It was the Biden administration, but it helped assist a view that the U.S. was unreliable and untrustworthy, something that some of our own allies have used to their own advantage. But I don’t think it was because Trump had a theory about it. I think it was just Trump reflecting that all he cared about was Trump.

The Biden Administration’s Approach to Putin

As you watch Biden come in and his approach to Vladimir Putin, he does call him a killer, but he meets with him in June of 2021. How do you evaluate the Biden administration’s approach to Putin before it’s clear that there’s going to be an invasion?

Well, I think the approach obviously failed because we did not deter the invasion. It’s not enough to say we’re helping Ukraine out a lot now as the country gets ground into the dust and tens of thousands of people get killed. America failed when it failed to deter the invasion on Feb. 24, and I think one reason for that is that that meeting in Europe in the summer of 2021 between Biden and Putin was very important; that this was an opportunity for Putin to look at Biden for, I think that meeting was three and a half hours long and judge who the new president was. And I think the conclusion he came away with was a lot of rhetoric and not much strength.

And there’s other things that are going on. There’s Jan. 6. After that meeting, there’s the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Are those things playing into how Putin is assessing the moment?

I think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a catastrophic mistake. It wasn’t just the way it was implemented. The strategic decision was completely wrong. That was Trump’s mistake as well as Biden’s. I think in Moscow and Beijing, when the withdrawal took place, they popped champagne corks. They couldn’t believe they were getting this for free. And that undoubtedly added to the meeting that Putin had had with Biden just a few months before, added to his perception that he was dealing with a weak administration.

And when Biden gets this briefing in the end of 2021, national security briefing, and the intelligence agencies are saying, “This looks real. This looks like it might happen,” what is that challenge that presented to President Biden, and how does he respond?

Well, he didn’t respond effectively. He said, in fact, on several different occasions that the sanctions that he threatened, if the Russians invaded Ukraine, were not intended to deter Russia from undertaking the invasion. They were to signal that there would be punishment after it took place. That’s admitting that you’re not even seriously trying to engage in deterrents. There were many other things we could have done that the White House did not do, and I think the fact that they weren’t being done said to Putin, again, “I’m going to be able to get away with this almost like I did in 2014.”

Because there’s video calls. There’s telephone calls. There’s shuttle diplomacy. There are public statements from the podium. But Vladimir Putin doesn’t seem to take them seriously or respect them. Is that your understanding of that?

Look, I think the run-up to the Russian invasion on the part of the U.S. and Europe was very long on rhetoric and very short on substance. I think Putin read it exactly that way.

And when he finally announces that he’s going to launch what he calls a “special military operation” but is a war, he gives that speech, that “empire of lies” speech, and so much of it is about the United States at the beginning. Does that surprise you when you hear that?

No, because I thought at the time that Putin believed he would win in Ukraine very quickly. I think that was the nature of the preparation that they had made, and they thought Ukrainian forces would collapse very shortly after the first contact. So he was making this into a bigger event, even though he called it a “special military operation.” And I would say only that we know from what our military and intelligence briefed to Congress, House and Senate, in the days after Feb. 24, they thought the Russians were going to win quickly, too. So it wasn’t just a misperception on Putin’s part.

Somebody told us that Putin, —who says he doesn’t believe Ukraine is a real country and who talks about the United States when he goes in, that this is actually a conflict between the United States and Russia in a lot of ways. Do you agree with that assessment, that that’s what’s at stake and that’s at least how Putin perceives it?

Well, I think, from Putin’s point of view—and it’s not just Putin; it’s a large part of the Russian population, that believes the dissolution of the Soviet Union was illegitimate, and many of the new independent states are also illegitimate. I have heard it from all of them, from Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister; Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister; Nikolai Patrushev, their national security adviser. I’ve heard it from Putin himself. They think Ukraine is illegitimate and failed.

So their effort to recreate the Mother Russia really has nothing to do with the United States. However, to the extent they believe that the West as a whole would not respond effectively, that would show a stronger Russia. So I think that was part of it. But I think this is about irredentism from the Russian point of view far more than anything else.

When you were getting those comments were those when you were in the Trump administration or the Bush administration, when you would hear that talk about Ukraine?

That was in the Trump administration.

OK. But did Vladimir Putin misjudge Biden or the West? I mean, the war has obviously not gone the way that he imagined. He certainly misjudged Ukraine, but did he misjudge the resolve of President Biden?

Well, I think he misjudged his own army more than he misjudged anything else. Their performance is, I think, to many pretty close observers of Russia, nothing less than shockingly bad, and that has hurt him internationally far more than anything else. I think the U.S. record post-invasion has been typically a day late and a dollar short. I think the administration has been intimidated by Putin and the risk of escalation. Many of the steps they’ve taken, when they’ve decided to supply weapon systems and intelligence and other information, has come after great pressure from Congress. I think the British, the Poles, the Baltic Republics were all much more forward-leaning than the administration.

But I don’t even think it’s the performance of the United States post-Feb. 24 that’s the issue. The key failure and the thing that influenced not just Russia but China as well was the failure to make a serious effort to deter the invasion from the begin with. It’s not a great solution to say, “We’re going to aid Ukraine and hopefully win the war.” The point is to try and prevent the war from happening, and we did not make a serious effort to do that.

… Vladimir Putin has often seen America as the enemy, and now the president describes Putin as a “war criminal,” a “murderous dictator.” He says at one point, “He’s got to go.” I mean, are we now in a conflict with Russia that is going to be difficult to resolve without an outright one side winning?

Well, I think we’re in a conflict with Russia and China as an entente. And I don’t think you can separate the two. I think you’ve now got a partnership that continues to involve— Ironically, Russia is very much the junior partner in this entente. But I think if we don’t wake up to the nature of the struggle we’ve got, not just in Europe but along the Indo-Pacific, along China’s periphery and in the Middle East, we’re going to be on the strategic defensive for a long time. The Russia war in Ukraine is a piece of it, but it’s a piece of a much bigger picture.

And this particular moment that we’re in right now, with the Russian forces being pushed back, with mobilization and backlash at home, with Vladimir Putin invoking the use of nuclear weapons, how dangerous is this moment? How serious is he?

Well, I think any time you consider nuclear weapons, you have to be sober about it. But I think Putin is bluffing. I think the time at which he would use nuclear weapons would be if Russian forces were in whole-scale retreat, entire command and control system had collapsed, they were heading back into Russia, or the Ukrainian forces were on the verge of crossing into Russia. Then I think he would consider it. But that’s why the United States needs to make the point which we have not done, that if Putin does use nuclear weapons, he has signed a suicide note.

And do you think that we’ve sent the message that we’ll deter that?

I don’t think we have deterred him at this point, but I also don’t think—we’re closer to the point where it may happen, but we’re not on the verge of it, and I think Putin well understands that every time he says nuclear weapons, there are people in Europe and the United States that start to quiver. I think we’ve got to be as clear-eyed about this as Putin is and not overreact and not be in the situation where he’s deterring us rather than us deterring him.

So my last question is, how does this end? C

In Ukraine, I think the default position is that it just grinds on and on. I don’t think either side is in a position of sufficient strength, at this moment, that they can really advance the idea of a cease-fire. I think that might have been possible a few months ago for Russia. I don’t see it anymore. And I see one of the consequences of not just the tension in Eastern Europe but tension along China’s periphery, with Taiwan in particular, where we’re at the opening stages of a very, very long conflict, probably for the rest of this century.

— Frontline | PBS | Friday February 19, 2023