Voiding International Agreements Can Have Awkward Consequences

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US hands Denmark a $25M check at Closing on the purchase of the Virgin Islands

History is so cool.

In 1917, Denmark and the US approved a treaty (or more specifically, a convention), the guts of which are summed up in two simple paragraphs:

His Majesty the King of Denmark by this convention cedes to the United States all territory, dominion and sovereignty, possessed, asserted or claimed by Denmark in the West Indies including the Islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix together with the adjacent islands and rocks.

[snip]

In full consideration of the cession made by this convention, the United States agrees to pay, within ninety days from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of this convention, in the City of Washington to the diplomatic representative or other agent of His Majesty the King of Denmark duly authorized to receive the money, the sum of twenty-five million dollars in gold coin of the United States.

The bulk of the document spells out the details, like how long Denmark has to vacate the premises, what items go with them and what transfers to the new owners, etc.

So OK, the US bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark? What’s the big deal, you ask.

The big deal is a little clearer when you see the “Declaration” at the end, made by US Secretary of State Robert Lansing:

In proceeding this day to the signature of the Convention respecting the cession of the Danish West-Indian Islands to the United States of America, the undersigned Secretary of State of the United States of America, duly authorized by his Government, has the honor to declare that the Government of the United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.

Ah. So the deal was the US gets the Virgin Islands, and Denmark gets Greenland and $25M in gold coin.

And now, Trump wants to void the deal. He ought to be careful, though, because there are other deals like this that the US made that other leaders might want to void.

In 1803, there was a little real estate deal that took three Conventions to lay out all the details (part cash, part debt-swap; involving 3 different nations), but the basic deal was this:

Whereas by the Article the third of the Treaty concluded at St Ildefonso the 9th Vendé miaire an 9/1st October 1800 between the First Consul of the French Republic and his Catholic Majesty [of Spain] it was agreed as follows.
“His Catholic Majesty promises and engages on his part to cede to the French Republic six months after the full and entire execution of the conditions and Stipulations herein relative to his Royal Highness the Duke of Parma, the Colony or Province of Louisiana with the Same extent that it now has in the hand of Spain, & that it had when France possessed it; and Such as it Should be after the Treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States.”
And whereas in pursuance of the Treaty and particularly of the third article the French Republic has an incontestible title to the domain and to the possession of the said Territory–The First Consul of the French Republic desiring to give to the Unit ed States a strong proof of his friendship doth hereby cede to the United States in the name of the French Republic for ever and in full Sovereignty the said territory with all its rights and appurtenances as fully and in the Same manner as they have bee n acquired by the French Republic in virtue of the above mentioned Treaty concluded with his Catholic Majesty.

[snip]

The Government of the United States engages to pay to the French government in the manner Specified in the following article the sum of Sixty millions of francs independant of the Sum which Shall be fixed by another Convention for the payment of the debts due by France to citizens of the United States.

For the payment of the Sum of Sixty millions of francs mentioned in the preceeding article the United States shall create a Stock of eleven millions, two hundred and fifty thousand Dollars bearing an interest of Six per cent: per annum payable half y early in London Amsterdam or Paris amounting by the half year to three hundred and thirty Seven thousand five hundred Dollars, according to the proportions which Shall be determined by the french Govenment to be paid at either place: The principal of t he Said Stock to be reimbursed at the treasury of the United States in annual payments of not less than three millions of Dollars each; of which the first payment Shall commence fifteen years after the date of the exchange of ratifications:–this Stock Shall be transferred to the government of France or to Such person or persons as Shall be authorized to receive it in three months at most after the exchange of ratifications of this treaty and after Louisiana Shall be taken possession of the name of the Government of the United States.
It is further agreed that if the french Government Should be desirous of disposing of the Said Stock to receive the capital in Europe at Shorter terms that its measures for that purpose Shall be taken So as to favour in the greatest degree possible the credit of the United States, and to raise to the highest price the Said Stock.

Again, lots of details passed over in these three conventions, but the essence of deal is simple: the US gets the land, and France gets cash and a settlement on the debts they owe to US citizens.

Perhaps if Trump wants to revoke by fiat the Convention with Denmark over the Virgin Islands and Greenland, President Macron might start thinking he should do the same with Trump over Louisiana.

Or there’s this, from 1867:

His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, agrees to cede to the United States, by this convention, immediately upon the exchange of the ratifications thereof, all the territory and dominion now possessed by his said Majesty on the continent of America and in adjacent islands, the same being contained within the geographical limits herein set forth, to wit: [geographic details omitted]

[snip]

In consideration of the cession aforesaid, the United States agree to pay at the Treasury in Washington, within ten months after the exchange of the ratifications of this convention, to the diplomatic representative or other agent of His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, duly authorized to receive the same, seven million two hundred thousand dollars in gold.

Again, lots of details omitted, but these two paragraphs lay out the broad parameters of the deal. Now imagine Putin wanting it back.

See, that’s the thing about international agreements. If you decide they aren’t worth the paper they are written on, other folks might agree with you and act accordingly.

Sarah Palin might want to brush up on her Russian, and I may need to be working on my French.

ADDENDUM

Don’t know how I could have forgotten this one from 1819, but I hit publish before it occurred to me.

His Catholic Majesty [of Spain] cedes to the United States, in full property and sovereignty, all the territories which belong to him, situated to the eastward of the Mississippi, known by the name of East and West Florida. The adjacent islands dependent on said provinces, all public lots and squares, vacant lands, public edifices, fortifications, barracks, and other buildings, which are not private property, archives and documents, which relate directly to the property and sovereignty of said provinces, are included in this article. The said archives and documents shall be left in possession of the commissaries or officers of the United States, duly authorized to receive them.

[snip]

The United States, exonerating Spain from all demands in future, on account of the claims of their citizens to which the renunciations herein contained extend, and considering them entirely cancelled, undertake to make satisfaction for the same, to an amount not exceeding five millions of dollars.

Lots of other details omitted, but you get the idea.

Perhaps Trump can ask one of his minions how to say “Welcome to Mar-a-Lago” in Spanish?

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When Even the German Far-Right Thinks You’ve Gone Too Far . . .

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Der Führer, upon learning that things are not going as he would like.

From Politico.eu:

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has long sought close ties to the Trump administration in its quest for powerful international allies and an end to its political isolation at home.

But as public sentiment in Germany increasingly turns against U.S. President Donald Trump and his foreign interventionism — in particular his talk of taking control of Greenland and his seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — AfD leaders are recalibrating, putting distance between their party and a U.S. president they previously embraced.

“He has violated a fundamental election promise, namely not to interfere in other countries, and he has to explain that to his own voters,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said earlier this week.

Hmm . . . I don’t recall Weidel complaining when Trump, Vance, and Musk were stumping for the Afd in the last national elections in Germany.

With that as background, it’s that much more impressive that Weidel now is throwing Trump under the bus. Think about that for a minute: a would-be Führer who is underbussed by the neo-Nazi AfD is no Führer at all. And for it to be the German far-right . . . that’s really gotta leave a mark. Stephen Miller must be so sad.

Or emboldened. “These AfD folks are so soft, so lacking in strength . . . Looks like it is up to us to remind Germans of their own heritage and strength.”

The AfD is the second-largest party in the Bundestag, much to the horror of Germany’s conservatives and liberals alike, and the AfD seems to support everything Miller and Trump embrace: Islamophobia, anti-immigration, and historical revisionism, just to name a few. Even so, the AfD looks at Trump’s comments about Greenland (following his actions in Venezuela) and says “no thanks – that’s too extreme, even for us.”

Enter Mike Godwin, of Godwin’s Law fame, speaking with Politico two years ago:

So to be clear — do you think comparing Trump’s rhetoric to Hitler or Nazi ideology is fair?

I would go further than that. I think that it would be fair to say that Trump knows what he’s doing. I think he chose that rhetoric on purpose. But yeah, there are some real similarities. If you’ve read Hitler’s own writing — which I don’t recommend to anyone, by the way — you see a dehumanizing dimension throughout, but the speeches are an even more interesting case.

What we have of Hitler’s speeches are mostly recorded, and they’re not always particularly coherent. What you see in efforts to compile his speeches are scholars trying to piece together what they sounded like. So, it’s a little bit like going to watch a standup comedian who’s hitting all of his great lines. You see again and again Hitler repeating himself. He’ll repeat the same lines or the same sentiment on different occasions.

With Trump, whatever else you might say about him, he knows what kinds of lines generate the kinds of reactions that he wants. The purpose of the rallies is to have applause lines, because that creates good media, that creates video. And if he repeats his lines again and again, it increases the likelihood that a particular line will be repeated in media reporting. So that’s right out of the playbook.

And now the lines aren’t hitting in quite the same way, as the AfD (of all people!) has noticed. Nothing hurts worse that being the open-mic comedian who throws out what they think is a great punchline, only to hear the sounds of silence.

Godwin ends his interview like this:

When I was growing up and being taught the American system of government, we would always be taught that the U.S. government has checks and balances in its design, so you can’t take it over with a sentiment of the moment. But I think what we’ve learned is that the institutions that protect us are fragile. History suggests that all democracies are fragile. So we have to be on the alert for political movements that want to undermine democratic institutions, because the purpose of democratic institutions is not to put the best people in power, it’s to maintain democracy even when the worst people are in power. That’s a big lift.

“Even when the worst people are in power.”

Godwin said that two years ago, but damned it if doesn’t sound like he said it yesterday. And we are finding out now just how big a lift it is to maintain democracy with folks like that in power.

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How the Deep State Taught Stephen Miller to Love Socialism

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Recent reporting suggests that the CIA — more than Trump’s other top intelligence advisors — continues to give the President unvarnished advice. And by yoking that advice to spectacular covert operative success (and probably a good deal of boasting to the press), the CIA seems to be building value with Trump and his stupider advisors (with the exception of the deliberately stupidest, Steve Witkoff).

Remain in Ukraine

Take Ukraine. A recent profile of how the US betrayed Ukraine describes the CIA has remained there fighting.

But there was a counternarrative, spooled out largely in secret. At its center was the C.I.A.

Where Mr. Hegseth had marginalized his Ukraine-supporting generals, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Ratcliffe, had consistently protected his own officers’ efforts for Ukraine. He kept the agency’s presence in the country at full strength; funding for its programs there even increased. When Mr. Trump ordered the March aid freeze, the U.S. military rushed to shut down all intelligence sharing. But when Mr. Ratcliffe explained the risk facing C.I.A. officers in Ukraine, the White House allowed the agency to keep sharing intelligence about Russian threats inside Ukraine.

CIA didn’t just remain in Ukraine collecting intelligence. They’ve played a role in Ukraine’s spectacular success in using drone attacks to degrade Russia’s security.

In June, beleaguered U.S. military officers met with their C.I.A. counterparts to help craft a more concerted Ukrainian campaign. It would focus exclusively on oil refineries and, instead of supply tanks, would target the refineries’ Achilles’ heel: A C.I.A. expert had identified a type of coupler that was so hard to replace or repair that a refinery would remain offline for weeks. (To avoid backlash, they would not supply weapons and other equipment that Mr. Vance’s allies wanted for other priorities.)

Russia no doubt understands the CIA remains intelligent (heh) and focused on its original adversary. When they recruited Witkoff to manage Trump’s capitulation, they specifically ordered him not to bring CIA.

Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real-estate developer and longtime golfing partner of Donald Trump, was just days into his job as the new president’s special envoy to the Middle East when he received a tantalizing message from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Vladimir Putin was interested in meeting Witkoff—so interested that he might consider releasing an American prisoner to him. The invitation came from a Kremlin moneyman named Kirill Dmitriev, using the de facto Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, as an intermediary.

There was just one thing: Witkoff would be expected to come alone, without any CIA handlers, diplomats or even an interpreter, a person familiar with the outreach said.

And Witkoff, obedient to Putin’s demands, continues to refuse CIA briefings.

Witkoff has declined multiple offers from the CIA for a briefing on Russia.

[snip]

Ahead of his trip, the CIA offered to brief Witkoff; he declined. Nor was he accompanied by an interpreter: He had been told that Russia’s president wouldn’t allow him to bring another person into the meeting.

A White House official said he participated in multiple briefings before his first trip to Russia, including Trump’s intelligence briefing. The CIA regularly briefs him on other issues like Gaza—but not Russia.

Inform Trump that Ukraine did not strike Russia

The thing is, the ability to provide accurate intelligence and (I assume this was more important) really cool attacks that make the attacker look strong appears to be increasing the CIA’s value to Trump.

Not only did CIA conclude (unsurprisingly) that Putin was lying when he recently claimed that Ukraine had attempted to target his residence,

The CIA has assessed Ukraine was not targeting a residence used by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent drone attack in the north of his country, according to US officials, undercutting an assertion the Russian leader had made to President Donald Trump in a Monday phone call.

The CIA’s director John Ratcliffe briefed Trump on the assessment Wednesday, the officials said.

Russia had publicly raised allegations Ukraine attempted to hit Putin’s home Monday, and Trump told reporters Putin had told him of it over the phone. At the time, the president said he was troubled by the reported action, seeming to believe the Russian leader even as Ukraine strenuously denied it was behind any such attack.

“I don’t like it. It’s not good,” Trump said, describing himself as “very angry” upon hearing the claim.

But in the wake of Ratcliffe’s briefing, Trump has repeated that conclusion.

President Donald Trump on Sunday told reporters that U.S. officials have determined that Ukraine did not target a residence belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a drone attack last week, disputing Kremlin claims that Trump had initially greeted with deep concern.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week said Ukraine launched a wave of drones at Putin’s state residence in the northwestern Novgorod region that the Russian defense systems were able to defeat. Lavrov also criticized Kyiv for launching the attack at a moment of intensive negotiations to end the war.

The allegation came just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had traveled to Florida for talks with Trump on the U.S. administration’s still-evolving 20-point plan aimed at ending the war. Zelenskyy quickly denied the Kremlin allegation.

Trump said that “something happened nearby” Putin’s residence but that Americans officials didn’t find the Russian president’s residence was targeted.

“I don’t believe that strike happened,” Trump told reporters as he traveled back to Washington on Sunday after spending two weeks at his home in Florida. “We don’t believe that happened, now that we’ve been able to check.”

Sure, this is just one instance, one single time when Trump believed his own spooks over Putin. But given that Trump first started to parrot obviously bullshit Russian claims eight years ago, in Helsinki, the fact that Trump would accept CIA’s judgment and in the process withstand an obvious attempt to pull Trump back towards capitulation, the instance feels momentous.

Venezuela central to success of operation

And given the CIA’s role in delivering one of the most sadistic thrills of this term, Trump may have no way back.

NYT dedicated an an entire story to describing how CIA (probably assisted by the $50 million reward the FBI offered) recruited someone within Maduro’s government who shared details of the dictators pattern of life.

The American spy agency, the people said, produced the intelligence that led to the capture of Mr. Maduro, monitoring his position and movements with a fleet of stealth drones that provided near constant monitoring over Venezuela, in addition to the information provided by its Venezuelan sources.

The C.I.A. had a group of officers on the ground in Venezuela working clandestinely beginning in August, according to a person familiar with the agency’s work. The officers gathered information about Mr. Maduro’s “pattern of life” and movements.

It is not clear how the C.I.A. recruited the Venezuelan source who informed the Americans of Mr. Maduro’s location. But former officials said the agency was clearly aided by the $50 million reward the U.S. government offered for information leading to Mr. Maduro’s capture.

Given how volatile things are in Venezuela, the CIA may not be able to sustain this person’s loyalty (or life, not least because Trump has made it a lot harder to support assets in various ways).

But for now, the CIA is taking credit for a key role in one of Trump’s only successes — and Trump is boasting of their work (again, in ways that may get assets in the field killed).

Advise Trump to keep regime members

Even before that success, though, CIA advised — and Trump heeded their advice — to stick with a Maduro loyalist to govern after his snatching. WSJ reports that senior Trump officials asked for this analysis weeks before the snatch.

Senior Trump administration officials commissioned the CIA to undertake the analytical assessment and debated it during discussions about day-after plans for Venezuela, the people said. The people familiar with the assessment said they were unsure of the precise date it was produced.

The report was briefed to Trump in recent weeks, according to two of the people.

The assessment didn’t describe how Maduro could lose power, or advocate for removing him, but attempted to gauge the domestic situation in Venezuela in the event that he did, people familiar with it said.

The intelligence report, the people said, cited Rodríguez and two other top Venezuelan regime figures as possible interim rulers who could keep order. The people familiar with the assessment didn’t identify the other two officials, but besides Rodríguez, the two most influential power brokers are Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

This advice may well backfire in the near term. It is undoubtedly the case that a Chavista will have far more ability to sustain order. But particularly given Trump’s belated realization that the oil won’t pay for itself — and the US government will have to subsidize oil development, it will very quickly sour at least some of the people most excited by this invasion, the Cuban-American community.

And ultimately, the Administration has gone all in with Chavistas who rule through brutal repression, as Stephen Miller said in that batshit interview with Jake Tapper where he also repeatedly said that Venezuela is an island.

For those who may be indicted, the best choice they can possibly make is to be part of a constructive decision-making process for the future of Venezuela. The best decision they can make is to cooperate fully and completely with the United States to be part of building this brighter future for Venezuela.

When Miller envisions cooperating with the other people who were indicted, he’s stating that he’s happy to cooperate with Diosdado Cabello, who has been far more involved in the day-to-day trafficking than Maduro, and who is very much an ideological Chavista.

Stephen Miller went on TV — around the same time as Trump said he was going to give welfare to oil companies so they could benefit Venezuela — and bragged about working with precisely the socialists he has defined his entire existence in opposition to.

John Ratcliffe’s CIA, the Deep State! after building Donald Trump’s trust over a year, convinced Stephen Miller to love socialists.

Ratcliffe bypassed the DNI gatekeeper

Meanwhile, Tulsi has remained silent since the snatch.

Leaving people to mock her past statements predicting precisely what is happening in Venezuela.

Tulsi almost lost her job in advance of the Iran strikes after posting a video warning of World War III.

It’s not necessarily a good thing that Tulsi’s skepticism is being supplanted with Ratcliffe’s willingness to go big on covert operations. Both of them suck. Neither can offer wise counsel to Trump (but both likely know Venezuela is not an island).

But at least some reality has begun to seep into Trump’s thinking.

Update, January 8: Sure enough, Bloomberg reports that Tulsi was systematically excluded from the planning for Venezuela.

The White House excluded Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard from months of planning to oust Nicolas Maduro because her previous opposition to military action in Venezuela cast doubt on her willingness to support the operation, people familiar with the matter said.

The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite,” according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. A White House official denied there was any such joke.

As a Democratic congresswoman in 2019, Gabbard said the US needs to “stay out” of Venezuela, and as recently as last month she railed against “warmongers” pushing the US into conflict.

The exclusion was the latest evidence of long-running tension over Gabbard’s role in the Donald Trump administration, and has underscored how the president’s decision to oust Maduro — despite campaigning against starting new wars — has widened fissures not only among his MAGA supporters but also within his team.

Tulsi’s people even pointed to that hilarious tweet to push back on this story.

A senior intelligence official pushed back against the characterization that Gabbard had been excluded, saying she provided intelligence that helped the overall mission, even if it was less operational and more analytical. An ODNI spokeswoman referred Bloomberg to a social media post Gabbard wrote Tuesday lauding servicemembers for the operation’s “flawless execution” of the move to capture Maduro.

“President Trump promised the American people he would secure our borders, confront narcoterrorism, dangerous drug cartels, and drug traffickers,” she wrote. The post broke a days-long silence after other top national security officials cheered the operation in press conferences, TV interviews and on social media.

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The Inaugural Donald J. Trump Awards

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The Inaugural Donald J. Trump Award Trophy, awaiting the engraving of Donald J. Trump’s name and massive accomplishments.

It’s been quite a year, which is just the way Donald Trump, a narcissist the likes of which the world has never seentm, wants it.

Almost.

Can’t you just hear him: “I do, I do, and I do some more, more than anyone else ever, and yet I don’t get all the accolades I deserve. Haters.”

Now sure, he got the inaugural Gianni “Human rights problems? What human rights problems?” Infantino FIFA Peace Prize. But he wanted more, as he believes is only his due. Sadly, so many other awards have been somehow given to other clearly underdeserving folks, and still other awards are just begging to be given but no one has had the imagination or chutzpah to actually award them.

Until now. May I have the envelopes, please?

The Donald J. Trump Award for Narcissistic Rebranding goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And how dare any mere jazz musicians object to this.

The Donald J. Trump Award for Nationalistic Rebranding goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for the Gulf of America. All the haters at the AP and elsewhere can just get a life.

The Donald J. Trump Award for Interior Decoration goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for the over-the-top golden decorations, the “live, laugh, love” style signage, and the stunning — really absolutely stunning — renovations of the Lincoln Bathroom at the White House. The Presidential Walk of Fame with its image of Biden the AutoPen and the jawdropping plaques recounting each president’s achievements is truly beyond belief.

The Donald J. Trump Award for Architectural Salvage goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for his efforts to save the nation from the abomination that was the White House East Wing and replacing it with a much more appropriate Donald J. Trump White House Ballroom. Specific plans for the ballroom remain vague – I believe the phrase “we have a concept of a plan” fits this project, among others – but simply removing the East Wing was something that clearly needed to happen. And why does FLOTUS need any office space anyway?

The Donald J. Trump Award for Services to the Legal Community goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for his amazing record of presidential appointments to remake the legal system. From his SCOTUS appointments at the top to his appointment of judges like Emil Bove in the middle and Aileen Cannon at the bottom, as well as his appointment of prosecutors like Jeanine Pirro and Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer, he has truly installed only the best peopletm and that would be enough to earn him this award. But Trump didn’t stop there. Add to this the way in which he pushed out career DOJ staffers and the manner in which he got Big Law to bend the knee in the private sector, and this award is a slam dunk.

The Donald J. Trump Award for Medical Advancements goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for his efforts to dismantle and destroy the World Health Organization. Reading what Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health describes as WHO’s role in the world, it is obvious that WHO is a clear nuisance that needs to go:

The WHO plays many roles—the visible, apparent roles that many people are familiar with, and the roles that are less visible. This includes:

  • Detecting, monitoring, and responding to emerging health threats, pandemics, and diseases of importance; we saw that during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • Gathering and evaluating data and information from all over the world in order to understand the status of health globally and detect emerging problems. This includes acute crises as well as larger trends in health—which issues are causing a higher burden of disease and which ones we’re making progress on and should sustain efforts to address.
  • Setting standards and developing guidelines that help people around the world, including here in the U.S., deal with various health threats and crises—not only infectious diseases, but all sorts of health issues.
  • Providing commodities and goods to improve health around the world, including vaccines and drugs for many diseases. The U.S.’s withdrawal from WHO impacts not only the people who receive those goods, but also the supply chain for them, which includes many people in corporate America.
  • Assisting with humanitarian response, which has important implications both for the populations who are affected by those crises and for global diplomacy and the role of our humanitarian responses in improving global diplomacy around the world.
  • Providing very important technical assistance to governments and partners around the world to be able to respond to health challenges. The U.S. plays a very important role in providing this technical assistance.

Yeah. Who needs all that? (The “Bloomberg” in the name of the school was a clear giveaway as to JH’s unreliable wokeness.)

The Donald J. Trump Award for Services to the Environment goes to . . . Donald J. Trump’s decision to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. As climate scientist Kim Cobb told PBS,

“We’re talking about unique, one-of-a-kind facilities like supercomputers, ticked-out [sic, should be tricked-out] airplanes, and most importantly, a staff of over 800 people who are at the top of their game in innovating in weather and climate science for public good, putting out data that is on every single climate scientist’s computer around the country, if not around the world, and a nexus of collaboration as well that is important training grounds for the next generation of leaders.”

Yeah. Who needs all that when we’ve got The Weather Channel, amiright?

The Donald J. Trump Award for Service to Diplomacy goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for his muscular engagement with Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Somolia, among other nations. (Simply renaming the US Institute of Peace as the Donald J. Trump US Institute of Peace seems hardly enough of a recognition for Trump’s breathtaking diplomatic work.)

The Donald J. Trump Award for Economic Excellence goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for his truly amazing grasp of the power of tariffs. Just ask the Kentucky Bourbon industry, US soybean farmers, and the members of the chambers of commerce in cities and towns along the US/Canada border.

The Donald J. Trump Award for Civil Rights goes to . . . Donald J. Trump for his dismantling of anything that smacks of a lack of racial harmony throughout American history. The Stonewall Riots, the Civil War, and anything having to do with Native Americans are merely the tip of the iceberg on the list of things that need to be forgotten, for the good of the nation. Trump is Making America Great Again by going back to the basics. As the faculty senate of Haskell Indian Nations University put it, Trump’s cuts to Native American education “represents a continuation of the trail of broken treaties” that is all too familiar to Native Americans. (Rumor has it he is working on how to get the women back in the kitchen (barefoot and pregnant), the gays back in the closet, and the blacks back in the fields, but those are clearly just rumors. I think. I hope.)

And that’s just a start.

I’m sure there are awards I am missing, but I trust that the imaginative and creative Emptywheel commentators can add to the list. Because really, Alfred Nobel has six prizes with his name on them, and what did he do, really, except invent dynamite? Trump surely deserves many more awards with his name on them than Nobel’s six. or the few that I have listed here.

Trump is truly in a league of his own.

Happy New Year’s, everyone. May next year be better (OK, that’s a low bar, but I’ll take it.).

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Other Nations are Updating their Threat Assessments, Too

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Logo of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service

It’s not just the US updating its national threat assessments, in public and in private.

From the NYT:

Denmark’s military intelligence service raised concerns for the first time about the United States in its annual threat assessment, saying in a report released Wednesday that shifts in American policy are generating new uncertainties for Denmark’s security.

The report points to the United States’ use of tariffs against allies and its intensified activity in the Arctic, and raises many of the same concerns that European leaders have voiced about the direction of President Trump’s America-first foreign policy.

“The United States uses economic power, including threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will, and no longer rules out the use of military force, even against allies,” the report said.

More from the Danish news site Politiken (Firefox translation):

Particularly one specific sentence stands out in the annual threat assessment, where the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (FE) lists external threats and security policy challenges for Denmark.

And notably, it is not about Russia or China. For the first time, the intelligence service in the report titled ’Udsyn 2025’ also focuses on the United States under Donald Trump’s leadership.

»The US is now using its economic and technological strength as a means of power, even against allies and partners«, the main conclusion states.

In an interview with Politiken, the head of FE cites examples such as the threats and imposition of tariffs, the belligerence over Greenland (including US-Greenland talks that exclude Denmark), and attempting to make Denmark (and others) dependent on US technologies.

But with Donald Trump’s statements about wanting to take over Greenland, are you as a service then forced to be interested in the U.S.’s actions in the same way as you do with Russia and China?

»The U.S. has for many years been and remains our most important ally when it comes to our security. So we work closely with the U.S. and with the American services in several areas. That is no secret. It is also clear that we are concerned with how the U.S. acts and also have dialogue with the U.S. regarding American interests«.

But doesn’t it almost go without saying that if someone wants to take over part of Denmark’s territory, it is your job to keep track of it?

»There is no doubt that it interests us and falls within our task. What instruments we use, we do not comment on«.

Is the U.S. our friend or enemy?

»I think that is a political question. We do not focus on friends and enemies; our task is to look at what security policy challenges and threats Denmark faces«.

Not a friend.
Not an enemy.
Someone who presents security challenges and threats.

Politiken goes on:

According to Professor of International Politics Ole Wæver from the University of Copenhagen, it is remarkable that FE »finally« suggests that the U.S. and Europe are no longer two sides of the same coin. For Denmark, he describes it as a »painful divorce« because, compared to many other European countries, we have been »hyper-Atlantic«.

»One thing is that we cannot take for granted that the U.S. is our eternal, reliable ally when we need to counter a threat from Russia and China. The next is how to relate to the fact that the U.S. itself can be a threat. Not least in Greenland. If the service really delved into that question, they would need to write an entire chapter about it in Udsyn«, he says.

Those are not exactly the words any US ambassador or US Secretary of State wants to hear said about the US. The US poses challenges and threats like an ex-spouse, rather than being an eternal, reliable ally? Ouch.

[Let us pause to remember that Trump is the ex-spouse of not one, but two women. Post-Stormy Daniels, we can only speculate on the status of his relationship with wife #3. One can only imagine how much money it has cost Trump to minimize the challenges and threats posed by ex-spouses. But I digress.]

How close was this relationship before? It wasn’t that long ago that the NSA and the FE cooperated in tapping the phones of European leaders like Angela Merkel, and now it’s come to this.

Trump has taken the US relationship with the rest of the world from being the “Leader of the Free World” to “America First” to “America Against the World.” Lovely.

Perhaps Trump might understand this if I put it another way: We’re talking about the Ryder Cup, with Nukes. (And Trump will recall how the Ryder Cup without nukes turned out.)

 

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Michael Anton and the Secret National Security Strategy

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Lawrence Freedman must have finished his post on the National Security Strategy before the latest news on it, which is that there’s an even more alarming longer version.

Nevertheless, Freedman’s observations about the process behind the document — that Michael Anton is thought to have started it, before he left in September, and Stephen Miller may have finished it — provide one possible explanation for why the document is so short, shoddy, and unenthusiastic about matters of standard policy.

It is worth reading the most recent NSS in its entirety. It is less polished than its predecessor, betrays little evidence of consultation, and is considerably shorter (33 as against 70 pages). It reads like time had run out and a deadline had been reached. It ends abruptly with a short discussion on Africa, this administration’s least important region, without a proper conclusion. It was released without fanfare in the early hours of Friday morning, without a press conference, suggesting the White House was not sure what to do with it.

The first draft has been attributed to Michael Anton, who was the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department until September 2025, when he left. It may be that Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff who represents the hardest line MAGA views, completed the document or at least oversaw its completion. This perhaps explains why, as Gideon Rachman notes, when restating standard policy positions, for example on Taiwan, the prose is ‘dutiful’ – ‘one senses that the author’s heart is not in it.’ Only on the civilizational issues and when praising Trump does it get fired up.

Much of the document seeks to give the administration’s disparate policies, including those directed against DEI hires or climate change or immigration, some coherence and international relevance.

This hypothesis — that some of its unfinished nature arises from having its author, Michael Anton, depart before he finished would raise a bunch of questions in any case.

Politico first reported Anton’s departure in August (so in the wake of the Anchorage summit), but said he would leave once he finished the National Security Strategy.

A senior Trump administration official and a Senate aide said Anton plans to depart this fall. The State Department later confirmed that he is leaving his post.

Anton, who directs the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, has been a low-profile but powerful presence with major roles on Russia, Iran and other foreign policy matters, including helping shape President Donald Trump’s still-unpublished national security strategy.

With Secretary of State Marco Rubio also serving as the national security adviser, a handful of political appointees such as Anton and Counselor Mike Needham have taken on more of the daily responsibilities of running the State Department.

Anton is expected to leave as the Trump administration wraps up writing the national security strategy, of which he is a lead author, according to the senior administration official. The official, and others, were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

[snip]

The Senate aide and another person familiar with administration dynamics said that Anton had been frustrated by Office of Presidential Personnel Director Sergio Gor shooting down a number of his potential hires and officials with the Trump administration such as Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby freelancing on key issues.

Anton had tried to resign in the spring amid frustration with the foreign policy processes of the administration, but Needham refused to let him do so, according to the Senate aide and two other people familiar with the matter.

The aide and one of those people said Anton was frustrated after being passed over as deputy national security adviser in the reshuffle after the departure of former national security adviser Mike Waltz.

But he ended up leaving in September, months before the NSS was dumped onto the world with no notice.

Which makes the Defense One claim all the more interesting. There’s a longer version of the NSS, which is even more inflammatory.

A longer version of the NSS, circulated before the White House published the unclassified version late Thursday night, shares the main points: competition with China, withdrawal from Europe’s defense, a new focus on the Western Hemisphere. But the unpublished version also proposes new vehicles for leadership on the world stage and a different way to put its thumb on the scales of Europe’s future—through its cultural values.

It was even more hostile to the EU than the public version is.

Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Poland are listed as countries the U.S. should “work more with…with the goal of pulling them away from the [European Union].”

“And we should support parties, movements, and intellectual and cultural figures who seek sovereignty and preservation/restoration of traditional European ways of life…while remaining pro-American,” the document says.

It excluded European nations from the alternative to the G7 it proposed, a C5 composed of China, Russia, India, Japan, and the US.

His national security strategy proposes taking this a step further, creating a new body of major powers, one that isn’t hemmed in by the G7’s requirements that the countries be both wealthy and democratically governed.

The strategy proposes a “Core 5,” or C5, made up of the U.S., China, Russia, India and Japan—which are several of the countries with more than 100 million people. It would meet regularly, as the G7 does, for summits with specific themes.

Most interesting — and something to which I’ll return — the unpublished version disavows hegemony.

The full NSS also spends some time discussing the “failure” of American hegemony, a term that isn’t mentioned in the publicly released version.

“Hegemony is the wrong thing to want and it wasn’t achievable,” according to the document.

These are, at this point, just data points. The existing NSS is shoddy and illogical. Michael Anton was going to see it through to completion but did not. There is reportedly a longer version — could that be what Anton wrote? Or could that be why he left before it was finished?

And we’re left with something that could have been written by Russia.

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White Man’s Burden: Trump Is Failing Six of Ten Metrics on His Own Open Book Test

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One reason I laid out what Stephen Miller and Trump’s other sad little advisors think they’re doing in their National Security Strategy is because once you do that, it makes it even more clear that their overestimation of their own competence is dooming the United States.

Fully seven pages of the short (33 pages as compared to Trump’s 68-page 2017 NSS and Sleepy Joe Biden’s 48-page 2022 one) document blather about what it is trying to accomplish: two pages announcing the adoption of utilitarianism over values, two laying out what the US should want, another laying out what Trump thinks the US wants from the world, and two more laying out what means the US has to get there.

This is the work of a bunch of men who imagine they are competent telling everyone who came before them that they were doing things wrong.

Yet by laying all that out — by writing down what they imagine competence would deliver — they make it clear how badly they’re screwing up.

Effectively, Donald Trump has already done significant, if not grave, damage to six of the ten things that Trump claims America wants:

  1. Continued survival of US sovereignty
  2. Protect the country from human trafficking, foreign influence, propaganda, and espionage
  3. “A resilient national infrastructure that can withstand natural disasters, resist and thwart foreign threat”
  4. The most dynamic economy
  5. A robust industrial base
  6. Unrivaled soft power that “believe[s] in our country’s inherent greatness and decency”)

Start with the obvious ones.

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and Elon Musk spent the first six months of this Administration trashing America’s soft power. These boys seem to imagine they can replace it with something that “believe[s] in our country’s inherent greatness and decency.” Except no one else will believe in American decency after it suddenly withdrew funding that resulted in the deaths of 600,000 people, two thirds of them children. People won’t trust you after you renege on paying the bills.

Or consider that 2nd bullet, which reads this way:

We want to protect this country, its people, its territory, its economy, and its way of life from military attack and hostile foreign influence, whether espionage, predatory trade practices, drug and human trafficking, destructive propaganda and influence operations, cultural subversion, or any other threat to our nation.

Of course, Trump claims to combat drug trafficking with his murderboat killings, even while he lets increasingly major drug criminals out of prison.

As for the rest? On her first day in office, the Attorney General stopped policing foreign influence, destructive propaganda, and influence operations; then Kristi Noem piled on by shutting down other programs combatting foreign influence and propaganda.

And, as an endless stream of stories reveal, both Pam Bondi and Noem have reassigned those who would hunt spies and human traffickers to go hunt undocumented grannies and day laborers instead.

Worse, the priority on weaponization has resulted in the loss of those people. Just the firing of a bunch of people who took a knee during the George Floyd protests to deescalate resulted in the firing of a counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Director and a supervisor.

a. In late March 2025, Plaintiff Jane Doe 5 was informed that she was being removed at the direction of Defendant Patel from her position at FBI Headquarters as a Deputy Assistant Director for the FBI overseeing counterintelligence at the direction of Defendant Patel because she kneeled on June 4, 2020. Plaintiff Jane Doe 5 had been specifically identified in then-Representative Gaetz’s letter. Plaintiff Jane Doe 5 retained her SES status but was demoted to a Section Chief position.

b. In April 2025, Plaintiff Jane Doe 6 was serving as the Legal Attache for the FBI based overseas along with her family. In that capacity, Plaintiff Jane Doe 6 had previously provided briefings to Defendant Patel with which he said he was very impressed. Nevertheless, on April 3, 2025, an FBI senior leader informed her that she was being removed from her term position in the Senior Executive Service to a non-Senior Executive Service position, abruptly uprooting her entire family and resulting in a significant pay decrease. The FBI senior leader informed Plaintiff Jane Doe 6 that Defendant Patel had indicated that his mind was made up and could not be changed.

c. In April 2025, Plaintiff Jane Doe 9 was demoted from her position as a supervisor overseeing all FBI ransomware and malware investigations. An FBI senior leader informed her that the demotion came straight from top level FBI leadership.

d. In April 2025, Defendant Patel directed the removal of Plaintiff Jane Doe 8 from her position supervising a counterintelligence squad.

There were even greater losses in DHS’ purges.

That’s part of the problem with bullet 3: The NSS’ grand plan to make America’s infrastructure more resilient. Along with gutting those who protect against foreign influence, Noem has gutted those who protect against hacking and natural disasters.

As for bullets 4 and 5? Trump’s trade war has had the opposite effect than he claimed it would, with historic layoffs and struggling manufacturing and small businesses.

Again, Trump did affirmative damage rather than achieving his goals.

Then there’s the question of sovereignty.

For all its yapping about America First, the NSS doesn’t deal with the way that Trump has been trading away America’s advantages to any rich foreigner with millions in cryptocurrency. Just yesterday, for example, Trump approved the sale of one of Nvidia’s most complex chips to China on the same day Houston’s US Attorney rolled out showy prosecutions for Chinese men accused of illegally exporting those very same chips.

“The United States has long emphasized the importance of innovation and is responsible for an incredible amount of cutting-edge technology, such as the advanced computer chips that make modern AI possible,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “This advantage isn’t free but rather the result of our engineers’ and scientists’ hard work and sacrifice. The National Security Division, along with our partners, will vigorously enforce our export-control laws and protect this edge.”

Alan Hao Hsu aka Haochun Hsu, 43, Missouri City, and his company, Hao Global LLC, both pleaded guilty to smuggling and unlawful export activities Oct. 10.

According to now unsealed court documents, between October 2024 and May 2025, Hsu and others knowingly exported and attempted to export at least $160 million worth of export-controlled Nvidia H100 and H200 Tensor Core graphic processing units (GPUs).

Trump already authorized the export of even more complex chips to Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, the same sovereigns backing Paramount’s hostile bid to take over a big chunk of the US entertainment industry (that’s after China’s Tencent was dropped).

And these are just the areas where Trump has most obviously failed his own standards.

He built in a gimme in those standards he actually accomplished by claiming to want nuclear deterrent but then stating, falsely, that the Golden Dome would deliver such a deterrent.

We want the world’s most robust, credible, and modern nuclear deterrent, plus next-generation missile defenses—including a Golden Dome for the American homeland—to protect the American people, American assets overseas, and American allies.

Mark Kelly explained how unrealistic this effort was months ago.

And as for the hope that the rest of the world will use American technology, one of the things Trump wants from the rest of the world?

We want to ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards—particularly in AI, biotech, and quantum computing—drive the world forward.

As for those chips Trump cleared for sale, China is limiting their use.

As for American biotech, the rest of the world is instead importing America’s scientists who’ve been defunded as part of Trump’s anti-intellectual purges.

There’s plenty else in this NSS (such as other references to America’s technical superiority) where the boys aspire to have skills they affirmatively destroyed.

As such, the NSS isn’t so much a strategy (a word they scare quote when they define it): it’s a confession that these self-declared competent people are failing to meet their own standards.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler, Thanksgiving Wednesday Edition!

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Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

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What Trump’s UNGA Speech Tells the World

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1896 sculpture of Cain by Henri Vidal, not 2025 sculpture of Marco Rubio

Speeches by national leaders at the opening of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) have multiple goals and various audiences. Leaders of small countries hope to raise concerns with large countries in a setting where they can be the center of attention, if only for 15 minutes. Leaders of ostracized countries often seek to justify the behavior that got them ostracized in the first place. Some speeches are aimed at the leaders in the room, while others are aimed at the folks back home. Some are aimed at allied leaders, and others at competitors and still others at enemies.

Under normal circumstances, preparation for the US president’s speech is probably on par with preparing the State of the Union address to Congress. Both speeches utilize folks from multiple agencies and both are subject to weeks and months of internal debates about what will and will not get into the speech. While the SOTU address is as long as the President wants to make it, the UN politely asks that UNGA addresses be kept to 15 minutes or less, because so many leaders will be speaking. The UNGA speech is primarily foreign policy, while the SOTU is more domestic, but both are critical to laying out the president’s – and by extension, the USA’s – positions on all kinds of things.

For UNGA, the State Department takes the lead (broadly speaking) in preparing drafts and posing options to the final decisionmakers in the White House. Other agencies like DOD, Treasury, Commerce, and DHS, as well as folks like the Director of National Intelligence, all weigh in and put their requests into the funnel out of which the final draft emerges.

While all the prep work on the speech is under way, so too is the prep work for listening to the speeches delivered by other leaders. Is it more of the same, are there new policy nuances, or even major changes of direction being conveyed? Different analysts at State, DOD, and the Intelligence community will prepare a list of “what to listen for” points as they get ready to listen to the UNGA speeches from the countries within their purview. Once the speeches have been made, these same folks will then be sharing their analysis with their superiors and the White House. “Here’s what we heard . . . , here’s what it means . . . , and here’s how it may affect our own policies and responses . . .”

Meanwhile, every other foreign ministry and intelligence service in the world does the same with the UNGA speech of the President of the United States of America. Especially when that president is Donald J. Trump.

So what will these folks notice about Trump’s speech, and what will their analysis of his speech lead them to think or do?

First, they will notice the absolute dichotomy between policy prescriptions and petty personal grievances. Yes, the speechwriting team and the professionals behind them put a lot of substantive stuff into the draft of the speech that went on the teleprompter, but Trump went off-script so much that it was easy for that stuff to get lost in the verbal flood of whining about his domestic political enemies alternated with his own personal self-promotion. If the substance was prepared to fill the 15 minute time slot, the whining and boasting filled another 45 minutes or so. That 3:1 ratio speaks volumes about what matters to Trump: “Three parts me, and one part everyone else. And that ratio is me being generous to everyone else.”

Second, even in the substantive parts of the speech, the presentation was arrogant and insulting. (Why yes, I do think Stephen Miller had a large role in shaping the speech. Why do you ask?) Trump’s “I alone can fix it” from campaigns gone by was echoed in Trump’s declaration at UNGA that he has always been right about everything. From immigration to energy to wars to peacemaking to cultural issues to history, Trump’s assertion that he is always right and that the world would be better off if everyone just bowed down and did what he said was at the center of his speech. The prepared draft of the speech might have been more polite about it, but the message was the same. All the world could see how Trump views them — little kids who need to listen to Daddy, and then do what Daddy says so that they don’t get punished.

Third, Trump’s UNGA speech was a confirmation and distillation of something these folks have seen since 2015 from Trump: facts are optional to Donald Trump. They will see that science takes a back seat to whatever Trump’s particular views and preferences are. Signed agreements, especially those signed by someone other that Trump, are optional, not binding. Historical facts that do not fit with Trump’s worldview are overlooked, ignored, or blithely dismissed as irrelevant. Leaders and nations who seek to move Trump and US policies with fact-based arguments will have a very difficult, if not impossible task if they follow this route.

Fourth, Trump has no use for the opinions of other leaders, unless they comport with his own opinions. Dozens of nations call what Israel is doing in Gaza “genocide” but Trump does not give a damn. Countries of all political stripes recognize the reality of climate change (even as they might differ in how it should be addressed), but not Donald Trump.

Fifth, this speech confirms yet again that what Trump desperately seeks is validation. In his head, he dreams of giving his own version of Sally Field’s academy award acceptance speech — “I haven’t had an orthodox career and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time [I won] I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it. And I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me! Thank you.”

Sixth, these analysts from other nations regularly ask themselves “How long will Trump hold to a given position?” He renegotiated the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico in 2019 and finalized it in 2020, only to come back in 2025 and ask “who would have ever sign a thing like this?” Grudges over personal slights he will carry with him for decades, but agreements with other leaders and other nations are much less predictable.

The danger to all of this is one basic thing: the world is learning –again — not to listen to the United States.

  • When Trump and RFK Jr. issued their untethered-to-scientific-analysis declaration that Tylenol should not be used by pregnant women, not only did the US medical community loudly shout “NO!” but so did medical leaders around the world (UK, Spain, India, Australia, etc.). The US has a long record of leadership in medical research and treatment — think of the elimination of smallpox and the work to do the same with polio — but now? Around the world, folks are asking what used to be an unimaginable question: Should we listen to anything medical coming out of the CDC?
  • When Trump made his big Liberation Day announcements and sought to put tariffs on almost every nation, he followed up on this with all kinds of exceptions, adjustments, and incoherent statements. Today the tariffs might look like this, but next week they went down, then a month later some of them went higher than before . . . and what the hell will they look like next year?
  • When NGOs and other leaders around the world found the rug yanked out from under them when Trump used DOGE to cancel grants for things like malaria prevention and anti-AIDS programs, as well as letting US food aid funneled through USAID rot in warehouses rather than be delivered to those who feed the hungry, they had to ask if the word of the US is worth anything any more. “We had a five year agreement – you put up this and we’ll handle that — and after 3 years, you reneged. Why should we trust you the next time you want to make a deal?”

Trump and his lackeys can laugh at the world all they want, but if the financial world follows the lead of the medical world and the scientific world, and ceases to trust that the word of the US is good, the US will be in a world of hurt. A non-trivial portion of US debt is held by foreign governments. When the Canadian public decided not to travel to the US or buy US bourbon, that hit the US hospitality industry hard. If foreign governments decide that rather than buying US treasury bonds, they’d prefer bonds from Germany or France or Australia, that will mean the US government would have to offer higher rates of return in order to get the money needed to pay for tax breaks for the rich run the US government.

In the world of international affairs, trust matters, and Donald Trump is pissing away what it took decades to earn. Good luck with that, Secretary of State/National Security Advisor/Archivist of the United States Marco Rubio.

 

[Corrected to fix a minor editing error regarding bond costs in the penultimate paragraph.]

 

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John Bolton and the MIHOP Gambit

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[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

Let me throw a minority report opinion at you, based on this video, first released on YouTube two days before the FBI served a dawn warrant on John Bolton’s home:

I doubt former National Security Adviser John Bolton expressed any new personal opinions in the video above with regard to Putin and Russia.

Bolton’s general opinion about Trump’s transactional approach to international relations certainly isn’t new.

But Bolton spent more than 12 minutes airing out his opinions on Trump’s handling of Russia, Ukraine, India-Pakistan, and tariffs.

He also shared his opinion that Trump’s so-called “list of accomplishments” is Trump trying to accrue to obtain a Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump’s handling of the India-Pakistan conflict in May earned an ego-fluffing nomination for a Nobel from Pakistan in June.

US support of Israel’s bombing of Iran in July, supported by Bolton, makes the nomination a joke as does continuing US support of Netanyahu’s genocidal handling of Gaza.

These conflicting approaches to international relations may pose leverage for Putin to pressure Trump on Ukraine, using Trump’s narcissistic desire for a Nobel Peace Prize — a prize former president Jimmy Carter, vice president Al Gore, and the first Black American president Barack Obama have been awarded. Bolton doesn’t make this point but he does say Putin is manipulating Trump.

Bolton’s criticism of Trump isn’t limited to the video above, or his remarks in his 2020 book, In The Room Where It Happened. Bolton has been interviewed by many outlets here and abroad during which his criticisms are laid out and only growing as Trump continues to flog his erratic and transactional foreign policies. Here are a sampling of interviews with Bolton:

John Bolton, whom Trump described as “a very dumb guy”, is worried about Taiwan
60 Minutes Australia, May 4, 2025

Putin Will ‘Take Advantage’ Of Trump Meeting: Fmr. Nat’l. Security Adviser John Bolton
NewsNation via The Hill, August 8, 2025

Trump is in rush to get deal done: John Bolton on Russia-Ukraine talks
Elizabeth Vargas Reports, NewsNation, August 18, 2025

‘Sanctions Don’t Prohibit What India Did’: Ex-Trump NSA John Bolton On U.S. Tariffs On India
Hindustan Times, August 21, 2025

In this excerpt from the Hindustan Times interview above:

10:34 [MATTOO] You know Ambassador Bolton, if I could bring you back to that question of trust uh moving forward in uh the partnership with America. Lots of commentators over the years in India have been skeptical about the relationship with the United States. They’re saying that look this is a country that fundamentally has a lot more leverage than we do. That’s the question you know do you have the cards and the the sense that there is in India is that yes America is willing now to use its leverage in a way that is coercive, is extremely transactional, uh, and is in some ways brutal.

And you’ve seen President Trump speak very appre, in a very appreciatory tone about tariffs, saying that we’re willing to use it time and again for our foreign policy instruments. There’s a sense that defense technology could be something that America uses as well. And for example, our fighter jet uh something like General Electric fighter jet engines which India is co-developing with the United States to use for our fighter jets is something that India took a significant leap of trust in the United States to develop that partnership uh after years and years as you might be familiar with of suspicion about Washington.

What do you think what has happened over the last couple of weeks does to trust in the relationship? And if you’re speaking to an Indian audience as you are now, how do you pitch to them that the American relationship is one that they should still rely on, should still work on, should still continue to develop?

11:45 [BOLTON] Well, unfortunately, what Trump has done on the tariffs generally uh is destroy uh decades of effort with India, but with a lot of other countries as well uh to build up good faith and trust and reliance on the United States and uh it will take time to repair that. That’s that’s the unfortunate reality. But but here’s where I think it’s important to understand that Trump is aberrational. I don’t know anybody else uh Republican or Democrat who ran for president, let’s just say in 2024, who if elected would behave anything like this. Trump’s doing a lot of things domestically in the United States that are cause for great concern for us as well. And I don’t know any other candidate from 2024 who would do that.

12:30 [BOLTON] Uh, Trump doesn’t have a philosophy. Uh so I think ultimately there’s no legacy for him to leave to his successors, whoever they might be. Uh and I believe that the uh the uh the the force of his personality inhibits a lot of people from speaking up, but that doesn’t mean they agree with what he’s doing. That’s very unfortunate in my view.

12:52 [BOLTON] But I think the uh the the the true strategic sense here uh particularly for a country like India with its assets and capabilities and uh and threats that it faces right on its own border uh is is just to take a deep breath and remember that the world’s going to last longer than the next three and a half years. And uh it’s not pleasant to go through this. I’m not not going to try and persuade anybody of that. But uh but our objective should be to keep the damage to the relationship uh at a minimum uh and then to think about how to repair it as quickly as we can thereafter because I think that when Trump walks off the stage uh he will take almost uh the bulk of this history with him.

(emphasis mine)

Bolton calls Trump “aberrational” or an “aberration,” but this is not the only time Bolton has done so. He did so in June 2020 when interviewed by ABC News, in an interview for NPR in August 2023, in March this year in a tweet from his own Xitter account, and in the India Today video (11:52) featured above.

While criticizing Trump and his foreign policy (or lack thereof), Bolton makes a point of calling Trump an aberration so often through so many media outlets that it seems like a campaign slogan.

In the Hindustan Times Bolton also noted Trump’s repression of free speech critical of his geopolitics. Bolton had to know that he would face more aggressive tactics by the Trump administration to squelch his criticism.

But what if this was the point? To egg Trump on with repeated critical comments Bolton knew from experience would hit a nerve with Trump, to goad him into attacking Bolton?

What if Bolton made it — the investigation into him including the raid on his home yesterday — happen on purpose? In other words, a MIHOP gambit?

If so, what are the next moves by Bolton and Trump?

~ ~ ~

During the February 5, 2020 hearing before the House Committee on the Judiciary, there were a couple questions asked of then-FBI Director Chris Wray mentioning John Bolton by name. First, committee chair Rep. Jerry Nadler (D, NY-12):

Chair Nadler. Okay. Now, recent reporting suggests that the
President plans to seek payback against those individuals he
believes crossed him during the impeachment proceedings. I am
sorry to have to ask. Has the President, the Attorney General,
or any other Administration official asked the FBI to open an
investigation into Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, John Bolton, or any
Member of Congress?
Mr. Wray. Mr. Chair, I have assured the Congress and I can
assure the Congress today that the FBI will only open
investigations based on the facts, law, and proper predication.
Chair Nadler. I understand that, and I assume that it is
correct that neither the President, the Attorney General, or
any other Administration official has asked the FBI to open
improper political investigations?
Mr. Wray. No one has asked me to open an investigation
based on anything other than the facts, law, and proper
predication.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Joe Neguse (D, CO-02):

I want to give you an opportunity to clarify earlier part
of your testimony. The Chair had asked a question, and I think
there was some confusion around your answer. So, with respect
to a recent article that alleges that the Administration may be
attempting to initiate political investigations or politically
motivated investigations, rather, into their political
opponents, has the President, the Attorney General, or any
Member of the Administration asked you to initiate an
investigation into John Bolton?
I am not asking whether or not that request would be
improper or proper or whether or not if such a request was
made, if you have initiated such an investigation. I am simply
asking if they have asked you to do so.
Mr. Wray. I understand why you’re asking the question, and
I would just tell you my commitment to doing things by the book
includes not talking about whether any particular investigation
does or does not exist. You shouldn’t read anything into that.
That’s not a hint that anything is happening. It’s just I don’t
think that’s a question that I can responsibly answer if I’m
going to be faithful to my commitment to doing things by the
book.
Mr. Neguse. Well, we appreciate–
Mr. Wray. I will tell you, as I said to the Chair–I will
tell you, as I said to the Chair, that no one has asked me to
open any investigation on anything that’s not consistent with
the facts, the law, and proper predication.
Mr. Neguse. I would just say, Director Wray, with all
respect, as you could probably imagine, these questions, both
the question the Chair posed and the question that I posed, are
not academic or esoteric for us. Seven months ago, Special
Counsel Mueller sat in the same chair that you are in, and we
all know now, that the very next day, the President had his
infamous call with the President of Ukraine, in which he sought
foreign interference in our elections. Of course, as you know,
in just a few hours, the Senate will render judgment in the
impeachment trial of the President.
So, one can ask reasonable questions as we read these
reports that we just over the course of the last few days as to
potentially what other actions this Administration might take.
So, again, I appreciate your earlier answer, and I want to move
on to a different topic, which is election interference.
There was an article just a few weeks ago in the New York
Times, and I would ask for unanimous consent to enter it into
the record. “ `Chaos Is the Point’: Russian Hackers and Trolls
Grow Stealthier in 2020,” by Matthew Rosenberg, Nicole
Perlroth, and David Sanger of the New York Times.
[The information follows:]

MR. NEGUSE FOR THE RECORD

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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Mr. Neguse. In the article, there are a couple of
references to new developments in terms of the way in which
Russian actors, the intelligence apparatus is engaging in
disinformation in attempted interference in our elections. I
wonder if you could comment about two in particular? I will
just quote.

“One of the two Russian intelligence units that hacked
into Democrats in 2016, `Fancy Bear,’ has shifted some
of its work to servers based in the United States in an
apparent attempt to thwart the NSA, which is limited to
operating abroad. Also, the trolls at the Internet
Research Agency are trying to exploit a hole in
Facebook’s ban on foreigners buying political ads,
paying American users to hand over personal pages and
setting up offshore bank accounts to cover their
financial tracks.”

I wonder if you could expand in greater detail on both of
those two issues and how the FBI, I guess, is addressing both
of those developments.
Mr. Wray. So, certainly, I appreciate the interest. I think
I’d have to be pretty careful about how much detail I could
provide in an open hearing. I would say that we believe–we
assessed that the Russians continue to engage in malign foreign
influence efforts of the sort that I was describing before–
fake personas, trolls, bots, state-sponsored media, the whole
gamut in the bag of tricks.
We also assessed that just like any sophisticated actor,
that they continue to refine their approach. We saw that from
2016-2018. We’ve seen it from 2018 moving forward. Happily,
we’re refining our approach, too, and we’re trying to stay
ahead of it.

(emphasis mine)

In 2020, during Trump’s first administration, neither the Trump DOJ nor the Democratic Party-led House launched investigations into John Bolton as Trump’s NSA, and in the FBI’s case, did not launch an investigation based on politics into Bolton.

Trump has now overseen a massive purge of intelligence and security personnel, many of whom share one or two things in common: they were involved in investigations in which Trump was a central figure, or they were involved in investigations related to Russia.

How will the Trump administration justify investigating Bolton now when his first administration didn’t appear to have done so? What’s Team Trump’s next move? What about Bolton’s?

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