What is Trump up to with Ukraine?

I have had the unfortunate experience of watching and observing Donald J. Trump non-stop for The Weekly List project. Keeping an eye on things 24/7, every day while he is in office, allows me to note the patterns of his behavior. Some aspects of what he did in his first regime have carried over, but he is also different this go-round in his focus and actual priorities (don’t watch his lips, watch his actions).

Let’s start from the beginning, with an item that the media seems to be entirely overlooking: the reason for Trump’s first impeachment. Oh, the things we forget in the firehose of information and disinformation! Here’s a reminder (basics from Wikipedia):

Trump's first impeachment took place after a formal House inquiry found that he had solicited foreign interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election to help his re-election bid, and had then obstructed the inquiry itself by telling his administration officials to ignore subpoenas for documents and testimony. The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid[a] and an invitation to the White House from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in order to influence Ukraine to announce an investigation into Trump's political opponent Joe Biden, and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine–⁠not Russia–⁠was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election.

So it’s fair to say there is no love lost between Trump and Ukrainian president Zelenskyy. That would be an understatement.

So what is Trump up to here?

In this second regime, Trump is even more emboldened to enrich himself and his broligarchs. WSJ reports that he and the First Lady have already pocketed a cool $80 million! He offers up grandiose visions of real estate developments on the Gaza strip, and selling TikTok to his favored broligarchs to manage - and so on. He does this all in the light of day, because we are so overwhelmed with his actions and lawlessness, he feels emboldened that we won’t fight back (by the way, I think that is wrong, and he is awakening us all right quick!).

The signals are pretty clear this week, that the Trump regime will not support Ukraine. Starting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments in Munich about them not being part of NATO, and that getting back land stolen by Russia being “unrealistic.” Hegseth was scolded by Republican Senators, but he was only parroting what his boss told him to say.