Good morning! Donald Trump has spent the past week proving that when he promised to “rebuild America,” he meant it literally, starting by tearing it down first. He’s far better at demolition than construction, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the wreckage he’s gaslighting as progress. The East Wing is being bulldozed to make room for his “Golden Ballroom,” the Justice Department now functions as an arm of his personal grievance fund, and on the world stage he’s redefined diplomacy as performance art with yelling.
In the span of days, he’s managed to alienate allies, humiliate envoys, weaponize prosecutors, and declare peace in Gaza while the bombs are still falling. The man who once bragged about “building the greatest economy ever” now seems determined to prove that anything, a government, a constitution, a ceasefire, can be reduced to rubble if you bumble hard enough.
Trump’s latest meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky was supposed to symbolize American leadership in a fragile moment. According to reports from Financial Times and European broadcasters, Trump screamed at the Ukrainian president to “stop at the battle lines” and cede the Donbas to Russia. Zelensky, who has buried half his cabinet’s worth of soldiers defending that land, shouted back.
For a few brief moments, the West Wing resembled a geopolitical cage match: one man trying to save his country, the other trying to remember which one it was. Trump reportedly warned that Putin would “destroy Ukraine” if Zelensky refused his “peace plan,” which was essentially a demand for surrender.
What Trump either doesn’t know or doesn’t care to understand is that Ukraine’s own constitution makes territorial surrender impossible. Article 17 explicitly forbids ceding any portion of the state’s territory by force or treaty. Even if Zelensky were inclined to humor ....
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