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‘Betrayal’: Trump’s Escalating Russian Alignment Condemned by Critics, Praised by Kremlin
In the week since Donald Trump and JD Vance launched a two-on-one televised attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the American president, his administration, and his allies have escalated actions that undermine—and even endanger—Ukraine and its people on multiple fronts, leading critics to denounced President Trump’s “betrayal.”
Trump and his administration reportedly will be targeting Ukrainian refugees in the U.S., and have already crippled a key military tool vital to Ukraine’s defense, halted weapons shipments, and ordered a top Pentagon agency to suspend operations and planning against Russia’s cyber offensives. Trump’s close allies reportedly are looking to back Zelenskyy’s political opponents in Ukraine. Critics—and even Russian state propagandists—say these moves send an unmistakable signal to the world: the United States has “switched sides” in Vladimir Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine.
“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently declared, as MSNBC reported Tuesday. “This largely aligns with our vision.”
President Trump “was asked for his reaction after the Kremlin said the White House was largely aligned with Moscow. He didn’t answer — but he didn’t have to,” observed MSNBC’s Steve Benen.
Reuters is reporting that the Trump administration will move to revoke the legal protected status of 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion to come to the United States. These refugees, under a Biden administration program, were required to pay fees, be fully vetted, and have proof of a sponsor and financial means.
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“The move, expected as soon as April, would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration,” according to Reuters, which noted that at least some could be put on a fast track to deportation.
While Reuters reports its sources say the plan was in place before President Donald Trump’s and Vice President. JD Vance’s Oval Office blowup, it also comes amid moves that appear to put the Trump administration on the side of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier this week, President Trump ordered a suspension of critical intelligence sharing with Ukraine, a move that is “expected to cripple Kyiv’s ability to target Russian forces,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Trump administration also “suspended weapons shipments to Ukraine earlier this week,” after the “contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the Journal reported. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, “said Trump, after that meeting, had also ‘asked for a pause’ of intelligence sharing.”
For years, the CIA and other U.S. Intelligence agencies “have forged deep ties with Ukrainian counterparts,” according to the Journal. Now, that has changed.
“We have taken a step back and are pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship,” Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told reporters Wednesday.
National Security Advisor @MikeWaltz47 confirms US has paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine: “We have taken a step back and are pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship.”
He says talks continue: “I think we are going to see movement in very short order” pic.twitter.com/Yyzpr7dSIq
— Nancy Cordes (@nancycordes) March 5, 2025
Trump’s decision to halt intelligence sharing “will cost civilian lives almost immediately, dismayed Ukrainians said Thursday,” NBC News reported. The President’s decision also came as European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “convened a summit in Brussels as they attempt to cope with an upended landscape in which the Trump administration appears to be treating them with hostility while seemingly warming to the Kremlin.”
In another escalation against Ukraine and an apparent move toward Russia, on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News that the war in Ukraine is “a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it needs to come to an end.”
“It’s a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it needs to come to an end,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Fox News.
Rubio criticized Ukraine and the Europeans for not having a plan to end the conflict.
“No one has any… pic.twitter.com/8LsgUFjaQy
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) March 6, 2025
Reuters reported that the Kremlin “said on Thursday that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s view that the Ukraine conflict is a proxy war between the United States and Russia is in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own assessment.”
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On Thursday, Politico Europe exclusively reported that “senior members of Donald Trump’s entourage have held secret discussions with some of Kyiv’s top political opponents to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just as Washington aligns with Moscow in seeking to lever the Ukrainian president out of his job.”
“The discussions centered on whether Ukraine could hold quick presidential elections. These are being delayed in line with the country’s constitution because Ukraine remains under martial law. Critics of holding elections say they could be chaotic and play into Russia’s hands, with so many potential voters serving on the front lines or living abroad as refugees.”
Politico notes that while the Trump administration denies interfering in Ukraine’s domestic politics, “the behavior of Trump and his officials suggests quite the opposite. Trump has accused Zelenskyy of being a ‘dictator without elections,’ and hinted he would not be ‘around very long’ if he didn’t do a deal with Russia. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has falsely accused Kyiv of canceling the election.”
University of Copenhagen award-winning professor of political science, Marlene Wind, blasted the news.
“This is just appalling. Is Trump secretly planning a coup in Kyiv by replacing @ZelenskyyUa with a pro-Russian politician?” she asked.
Bartłomiej Gajos, a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, asked: “Is it official US policy to seek regime change in Ukraine? That would be my question to the administration if I were a journalist.”
Meanwhile, critics are also condemning Secretary Rubio’s remarks—with some calling them Russian talking points. And President Trump’s decision to target the nearly quarter-million Ukrainian refugees in the U.S. is also being denounced.
Critics Sound the Alarm
“This is nasty, heartless, un-American and dangerous,” declared veteran and veterans’ activist Paul Rieckhoff. “It’s sending innocent civilians back into a war zone to die. These are women and children and seniors. The latest move to deepen Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine. And American values. He continues to drive the knife deeper into the back of Ukraine. And NATO. Putin is celebrating. And the Statue of Liberty is weeping. Congress must exhaust every option to block this. I’d expect Canada or another good nation to step up to accept these Ukrainians. As America continues to fail and fall. And become more isolated and less safe.”
“Hold on,” said The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimo, “didn’t President Trump just say that half of Ukraine is flattened and that his main motivation is care for innocent Ukrainian lives?”
The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser remarked, “How to see this as anything other than a betrayal of people who fled for their lives? The US welcomed them… and now we’re throwing them out, and switching sides in Putin’s war.”
Last week, Glasser wrote: “the United States of America has switched sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine. The country is no longer on the side of Ukraine.”
Late Thursday morning Glasser posted video of a French lawmaker, calling it a “Powerful speech about Trump’s betrayal of the democratic world.”
“My question watching this — where is the American version?” she asked. “Why hasn’t US’s own opposition to Trump been able to speak out with such clarity and force? Tempus fugit.”
Jesuit priest James Martin, a New York Times best-selling author, and editor-at-large of America magazine, responding to the news Ukrainian refugees may lose protections and be deported, wrote simply: “‘I was a stranger and you did not welcome me’ (Mt 25).”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: SCOTUS Hands Trump a Loss in Multi-Billion Dollar USAID Case
Image via Reuters
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
