Ukraine is attacked and Trumpists swoon over Vlad the Invader. With global and U.S. democracy in peril, the G.O.P. is M.I.A.
By DOUGLAS McGRATH
“If you’ve been watching the news, you know that Putin is having a border dispute with a nation called Ukraine. Now, the main thing to know about Ukraine, for our purposes, is that its leaders once sent millions of dollars to Joe Biden’s family.” It is at this point that you might suspect an idiot is talking—you’re right. It’s Tucker Carlson. He goes on: “Not surprisingly, Ukraine is now one of Biden’s favorite countries…. The administration assures us this has nothing at all to do with repaying Joe Biden’s personal debts to Ukrainian oligarchs, not at all.… But Joe Biden likes Ukraine, so Putin bad, war good.”
Tucker Carlson is the highest-rated host on the highest-rated cable-news network, Fox. He is a Trump Republican, which means he says whatever it takes to keep Trump happy. And Trump is all in for Putin. Not only has Trump not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he called it “genius.” The night before the invasion, he told a political fundraiser at his little Paraguay-by-the-Sea, Mar-a-Lago, “He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart.” His former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who recently spent $30,000 to improve his media appearances and may have overpaid by $29,950, used one of those appearances to purr, “[Putin] has a lot of gifts. He was a K.G.B. agent, for goodness sake. He knows how to use power…. I have enormous respect for him.”