Morning Jolt: Trump’s Revealing Choice of Which Foreign Leader Gets Denounced as a ‘Dictator’

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February 20 2025

Trump's Revealing Choice of Which Foreign Leader Gets Denounced as a 'Dictator'

On the menu today: Donald Trump calls Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, a term that he curiously has never applied to Russia's Vladimir Putin; meeting up with the leader of the Chechen government in exile; and more air-raid alerts and audible air defenses over Kyiv.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

Kyiv, Ukraine — When he’s challenged, Donald Trump's reflexive instinct is to double down, no matter how foolhardy or untenable his initial step was. On Tuesday, Trump told the Ukrainians regarding the war, "You should have never started it!," and he was destined to get criticism and pushback for that absurd assessment of how the war began. Wednesday, Trump unleashed another tirade on Truth Social, dismissing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a "modestly successful comedian" who had "talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion" to take his country "into a War that couldn't be won."

According to the U.S. government's special inspector general for Ukraine aid, as of September 30, 2024 ...

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