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| It’s a matter of public record that Trump was mentored by one of New York’s most notorious gangsters, Roy Cohn. |
It’s already the end of April and the dust is settling on the infamous Oval Office meeting (28 February 2025) between the American and Ukrainian leaders that started oddly and ended in extraordinary scenes. What really did it tell us?
On the surface, it had started amicably
and then all gone downhill after the remark: “Do you even own a suit”
offered by an invited journalist as Trump and Vance laughed heartily.
Amazingly, the mainstream media depicted this as Trump starting things off in a friendly way.
But
the BBC’s Sam Kiley was surely right when he posted on BlueSky that
wasn’t personal, it was strategic: it marked “a clash of civilisations”.
In
particular, it marked the complete endorsement of the United States
with the philosophy of ‘might is right’. After all, in 2018, before
Zelenskyy was elected, Trump had told G7 leaders that he supported
Russian’s illegal invasion of Crimea because everyone there “speaks
Russian”. He went on to campaign for Russian readmission to the G7/G8
after it was subsequently expelled.
Add to which, Trump has ruled
out a return of all captured Ukrainian territory, or Nato support for a
peacekeeping force, as well as a Ukrainian presence in talks and future
Nato membership for Ukraine. “Who knows’, the US president shrugged,
maybe Ukraine “will be Russian one day”.
These are the tactics
not of a diplomat - but of a mobster. Actually, the mob are rather picky
about dress codes. Ed Grabianowski and John Donovan recall that the
potential gangster is told simply to “dress up”, taken to a private
place and seated at a long table, next to the
boss. Other Mafioso who are present will join hands and recite oaths and
promises of loyalty. All of this is Trump ritual.
But then, as David Cay Johnston reported for Politico:
“From a $400 million tax giveaway on his first big project, to getting a casino license, to collecting fees for putting his name on everything from bottled water and buildings to neckties and steaks, Trump’s life has been dedicated to the next big score. Through Cohn, Trump made choices that—gratuitously, it appears—resulted in his first known business dealings with mob-controlled companies and unions.”
Trump hired mobbed-up firms to erect Trump Tower and his Trump Plaza apartment building in Manhattan, including buying overpriced concrete
from a company controlled by mafia chieftains Anthony ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno
and Paul Castellano.
Yet despite all the evidence of mob links,
time and time again, Trump has avoided scrutiny let alone prosecution -
just s he never faced the courts for his incitement of the Capitol
rioters.
Illustrating the psychology of the guilty, Trump rails
against the innocent. On his own website, Truth Social, his posts
announce plans for harsh retribution against the specific lawyers,
judges, and other officials whom he has blamed for his legal and other
troubles. Trump has reposted a call for Manhattan District Attorney
Alvin Bragg to be “put in jail,” and another for New York Attorney
General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron to be “PLACED UNDER
CITIZENS ARREST”. He has reposted calls for Special Counsel Jack Smith
and others to be locked up and to then “throw away the key.” One reTruth
promised to charge Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Bragg,
Smith, Garland and Biden with conspiracy and racketeering.
In
the 2024 election, there were bizarre, experts say “billion to one”
discrepancies in voting patterns in certain key swing states. Yet no one
asked for a hand recount, just as no one investigated Elon Musk’s
bizarre sweep of voter names and data preceding the election.
The
result is that today, the man who could very well be America’s richest
mobster is – incredibly – sitting in the Oval Office as President! The
Department of Justice jumps to his orders, judges and law firms tremble
under his gaze.
Today, Trump threatens the whole world with his
tariffs – and more often than not their leaders respond by crawling to
him offering special deals and concessions.
“You have no cards!”,
Trump bellowed at Zelenskyy, but it’s not just Ukraine who Trump and
his backers think they can beat into submission – it is literally the
whole world, from China to the penguins on Heard Island.
There’s a kind of madness in this, the ego-driven madness of the mobster.
It’s
revealing that Trump’s gripe with Ukraine involved the country “paying
back” $500 billion, a figure plucked from the air – as the most that
Ukraine could be said to have had from the US is around a third of this.
The Kiel Institute, a German-based think tank tracking support going
into Ukraine, has calculated that the United States spent $120 billion
on aid between January 2022 and December 2024.
Characteristically
contradicting himself, President Trump has also claimed: “We've spent
more than $300 billion and Europe has spent about $100 billion - that's a
big difference”. In fact, between 24 January 2022 and the end of 2024,
Europe as a whole spent $140 billion on Ukraine, so rather more than the
US.
Not to forget that if Vance, the ‘underboss’ to Trump, had
had his way, the US contribution would have been halved! Back in April
2024, Vance broke with Senate Republican leaders to vote against a
foreign aid package that included nearly $61 billion for Ukraine.
The
Oval Office humiliation of Zelenskyy revealed Trump’s indifference to
detail - as well as his incredible arrogance. Even the date Crimea was
grabbed by Russia was casually missated. This is really a very simple
fact, of the Wikipedia variety. The Russian annexation took place in the
spring of 2014, between 27 February and 26 March. But that didn't stop
the obsequious Vance interjecting that the annexation took place “2014
to 2015”.
Likewise, Trump freely branded Zelenskyy “a dictator”
in the days running up to the meeting, before seeming to waft the
accusation away with a disingenuous “did I say that?”. Yet, sure enough,
the word pops up in the exchanges, with Trump at one point shouting at
Zelenskyy: “You’re in no position to dictate that.… You’re in no
position to dictate what we’re going to feel.”
Vance joined in
the insults, not only of Zelenskyy but of a host of Western leaders, by
referring to their visits to war-torn Ukraine as “propaganda tours”.
But
back to the money, which is all mobsters really care about. Trump says
American has “given” Ukraine aid whereas Europe has only loaned it.
Actually, there is some truth to that, but the European loans are often
under very special conditions - for example, with low repayments
extending decades in the future - or with repayments coming from from
frozen Russian assets. And hold on: if the USA “gave” the money, then
where does the obligation to Ukraine to pay it back come from? “We want
to get that money back”, Trump says. “We're helping the country through a
very very big problem... but the American taxpayer now is going to get
their money back – plus.”
Plus, indeed! Essentially, the
Trump-Vance strategy is to rob Ukraine at the point of a gun. The novel
part is that they are not even having to use their own gun - they’re
using Russia’s one instead.
Coupled with the threats, there's some very callous jibes too, about Ukraine “running out” of soldiers.
TRUMP: You’re running low on soldiers.
ZELENSKYY: Don’t — don’t — please, Mr. President.
TRUMP: Listen, you’re running low on soldiers.
But the other disgraceful aspect of the Trump plan is the way that it offers rewards for the Russian aggression. Putin has already announced that he is open to offering the US access to graphite, lithium and an array of rare minerals, some of it even sourced from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, all of it requiring a ceasefire that essentially freezes Russia’s gains in place and allows Russia time to consolidate and prepare for its next push.
The mineral assets in the
territories that Russia has taken (with so much brutality) would be
useless without Western investments to extract the minerals and access
to the world market afterwards. This is what Trump has offered – thus
turning Russia’s Ukraine invasion into a profitable exercise. Where
previous Presidents would have been co-ordinating global sanctions on
the Russians, Trump and co. are instead facilitating the profieering.
Possibly,
the split of the loot is the topic of the numerous secret phone calls
Trump has been reported to have had with Putin recently - calls so
sensitive and disgraceful that even Trump’s aides are barred from the
room. But we see the end results of the conversations in the ultimatums
issued to Ukraine.
Towards the end of the crucifixion of Zelenskyy, Vance say:
VANCE: Have you said “thank you” once?
ZELENSKYY: A lot of times.
VANCE: This entire meeting? No, in this entire meeting…
“Thank you” would be hard to insert into a meeting which starts off with cheap jokes about your appearance, segues to bogus claims about cash support
and closes with shouted accusations about “gambling with the lives of
millions of people”! Truly, for humbug, Vance excelled himself. Nor was
he done. One last accusation showed his complete disrespect for
Zelenskyy, for his office and for his country’s suffering.
VANCE: You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October.
Given the argument was about the future of a country, indeed, Trump says, of the world, that final accusation seems, well, rather petty. Not to
mention that it is as tendentious and skewed as everything else Vance
and Trump said. Zenenskyy visited a munitions plant in a swing state –
and any Republican objections that it was a “campaign event” would have
had to apply equally to all of Zelenskyy's visit to the country. But as
they had actually spent much of the time cheering him in the Senate they
could hardly say that. The volte face is as dishonest as it is hypocritical.
Which
also pretty much sums up the Republican Party. Because after the
meeting, senators who previously had been anxious to be photographed
with the ‘war hero’ suddenly became his fiercest critics.
Hypocrisy
is there too in Vance’s claim that Zenenskyy insulted the decorum of
the Oval Office. Because real disrespect (quite apart from Vance
trampling the diplomatic protocol that presidents only debate with
other presidents) was being shown to the previous President. “This
stupid president” as Trump put it, as well as later as “a guy named
Biden who is not a smart person”.
Time will tell – or maybe
history will have to decide – if Trump and Vance are as smart as they
think they are. Mafiosi thrive where law enforcement is corrupted, and
slowly is strangled where prosecutors win court battles. Today, indeed,
Trump’s only real opposition does come from the courts. But ominously,
and incredily, this mafia don controls the Department of Justice itself!