Summary
Secretary of State Marco Rubio grew visibly frustrated during an ABC News interview when questioned about the Trump administrationās approach to Russia.
Defending Trumpās push for peace talks with Putin, Rubio insisted negotiations were necessary but admitted the administration didnāt know Russiaās demands.
He clashed with host George Stephanopoulos over Trumpās refusal to call Putin a dictator and the U.S. siding with Russia in a recent UN vote.
Rubio also compared Trumpās handling of Ukraine to Bidenās approach to Israel, further escalating tensions.
Yes, yes, a billion times yes.
To me, the fundamental problem - the primary reason that it seems so difficult to deal with Trump - is that so many politicians and analysts and commentators are still spproaching issues as if the old rules are still in place, and they quite simply arenāt.
Every time that another analysis or editorial appears that discusses the āfailuresā of the Trump administration, since their policies will undermine the original goals of the agency/programs in question, itās ultimately just meaningless noise, since it starts with the patently false presumption that the original goals still count. They donāt.
The Trump administration isnāt failing to achieve traditional goals - itās succeeding in achieving an entirely new and different set of goals. And there isnāt going to be any meaningful commentary until it focuses on those new goals.
Just because Trump has different motivations doesnāt mean thatās the correct framing for questions. Questions and accusations are more for the audience than trying to get Trump to reconsider why heās doing something, and at least currently that bias toward āhow things were supposed to workā still exists in the general public.
Iām fully aware of that (and the notion tgat Trump would ever reconsider anything is foolish on its face). And itās for the audience that the politicians and analysts and commentators need to change the context of their analyses.
And thatās a lot of the problem. The people need to be smacked upside the head with the two-by-four of truth.
Why on earth would you want to normalize Trumpās motivations? The whole point of taking about things based on those previous frameworks is to make the current events look shocking. If you reframe it according to Trumpās new center, then you get quotes like āthis was expectedā or āthis was better than expectedā for things that should still shock the audience. Thatās exactly the framing Republicans want this to have so they donāt have to answer questions about Trump breaking from our (and their) previous norms.
Holding the Overton window steady despite Trump obviously not wanting past precedent to mean anything may not be perfectly candid with the audience, but we sure as shit donāt want to just take it as given that America is an ally with Russia or antidemocratic moves are to be expected and then feel good when he only does 75% of what we thought he was going to do.
Ah. So reporting āTrump is a lying sack of shit who claims to be dismantling agencies in order to cut spending but is actually methodically eliminating every part of the government that serves to limit the abuses the 1% can heap on the rest of the countryā is somehow ānormalizingā his actions and reporting āTrumpās spending cuts are failing to accomplish as much actual reduction in spending as he promisedā somehow is not.
Got it.