Trump’s Inner Warhawk

[Stoic]

Never read it. But I remember 4 years of people crying "oh no!!" at everything Trump said, thinking he was gonna start WW3, when everything he did actually calmed down relations between the US and Russia, China and North Korea. Also he listened to his military leaders. He wouldn't just act out no matter what he said in public without running it by his military advisors first.

Trump did calm things down with North Korea, after he stirred things up, eventually leaving them pretty much as he found them.

[rogue06]

"Art of the deal" describes the business tactic of asking for more than you want and letting the other guy negotiate you down to what you actually want. It was how Trump operated as president.

It's a blueprint for how he typically operates.

[rogue06]

The serial fabricator taking a stand for integrity. I live for irony.



Making #@$ up is your gig. I prefer claims based on objective facts.

While a great deal was made of the extortion attempt involving Biden, that wasn’t his first ask in the infamous call to Zelensky.

Transcript
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The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation..I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

To be clear, the “they” in “they say” was the Putin administration attempting to deflect blame from Russians indicted for interference with the 2016 election onto Ukraine.

Unlike the Biden ask, this one provided no direct benefit to Trump, yet he placed it first. Hence the claim that the president was acting as Putin’s puppet in the White House.

Aside from the obvious goalpost moving from your claim that Trump was "Putin’s former puppet in the White House" (a reference to the terminally rebutted Collusion Delusion) to the telephone call with Zelenskyy...

Zelenskyy as well as several other Ukrainian officials said that there was no attempt to extort anything by Trump. That he was not asking for any sort of quid pro quo. Zelenskyy continues to maintain that even well after Trump is out of office and cannot retaliate against him (the claim was that he was scared of Trump so he lied). In fact, he probably would have been well rewarded by old Joe's Administration if he started saying that Trump was trying to blackmail him. And yet he didn't.

Then again, perhaps you're one of those who still thinks Zelenskyy is lying.

[rogue06]

Trump did calm things down with North Korea, after he stirred things up, eventually leaving them pretty much as he found them.

Personally I would consider getting the North Koreans to pause testing nukes and missiles, getting remains of GIs returned by them for the first time, and even getting them to cut way back on the internal anti-American propaganda, counts as an improvement although you may disagree.

[rogue06]

I think the truth is more complicated than that. I can see that the report he ordered nuclear weapons to be used on hurricanes being wrong, but he likely said that he read it might be effective. It was a meeting with multiple earwitnesses, so that’d be spectacularly brazen.

His • Edited by a Moderator • countries comment also had many witnesses but was not recorded. It’s not likely in a meeting of many witnesses that one person would invent that. People generally invent personal interaction statements because those are easier to lie about.

Let's talk about that comment a bit...

First, anyone who has ever been to Haiti like I have understands that (while it was recovering) calling it that would have actually been an insult to [poop]holes. When I was there you could actually look at satellite pictures and see where the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic were because the people of Haiti had stripped the country of virtually every single tree. This meant when you looked at the picture, Haiti was brown whereas the DR was nearly all green. And it was even more obvious on the ground. The people were digging up the tree stumps of the trees that had been chopped down to get at the roots so they could use them to make fires to cook the little actual food they could get their hands on.

"This is literally dirt being prepared for humans to eat"

Now to get to the so-called remark itself.

The source of the claim, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), has a history of lying about things that took place in private meetings. For instance, he claimed that "In a ‘negotiation’ meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told [President Barack Obama]: 'I cannot even stand to look at you'." The problem is that both the White House and the House speaker's office denied Durbin's account of events. Obama's press secretary Jay Carney came straight out and said, "I looked into this and spoke with somebody who was in that meeting and it did not happen."

Now for the witnesses.

Virtually everyone at the meeting said they didn't hear Trump say it although Lindsey Graham (who was still a virulent Never Trumper at the time^[1]) said that Durbin's claim was "basically accurate" which means it was not accurate but was fairly close.

So we have a man with a notorious history for making stuff up like this, making the claim, with nobody else there verifying it. The closest was someone who said Durbin's claim wasn't accurate but wasn't far off.^[2]

And the one thing that virtually every report in the news about the incident left out is that Trump said he wanted more immigrants from Asian countries. They always mentioned how he wanted more people coming from countries in Europe but always seemed to omit his remark that he wanted more immigration from Asia as well. It just didn't fit the narrative they want to push. After all, if you're a racist white supremacist you're not going to want more people from a non-white region like Asia either.



1. he one of Trump's most vocal Republican critics during the campaign saying he was a "nut job" and "unfit for office" and who boasted of voting for Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin rather than the man his party had nominated. Further, at the time of the alleged remark he had allied himself with Durbin, working closely with him on the issue of immigration.

2. and now to indulge in a bit of whataboutism... Absolutely nobody blinked an eye when Obama called Libya a "[poop] show" which was hardly any different than what Trump was said to have remarked about Haiti.

[Juvenal]

Aside from the obvious goalpost moving from your claim that Trump was "Putin’s former puppet in the White House" (a reference to the terminally rebutted Collusion Delusion) to the telephone call with Zelenskyy...

Considering current events in Ukraine, it’s past time to lose your last ties to the Putin wing of the GOP.

Directly to your latest foray into fabrication, examples of the former guy acting as Putin’s puppet are legion. I’ve provided two of them in detail already. Helsinki is another prime example.

But those incidents won’t include collusion between the Trump team and the Putin administration because that was clearly in Trump’s interest as well. Hence, activity that he would have pursued independent of any tugs from Putin’s strings. The goal shifting here is by you, and only you. You brought in the collusion claims, which don’t relate to puppet behavior, but do relate to your continued reliance on counterfactuals.

I’m not even the close to the top of the list in pointing out that you’re perfectly capable of debunking the argument forms you’re presently using to support your political positions when they relate to the biological theory of evolution.

In place of making #@! up, allow me to once again suggest sticking with objective facts.

Mueller expressly refused to make any statements on collusion between the Trump team and the Putin administration, making your continued claims that there was any rebuttal, let alone a definitive rebuttal, yet another example I’d prefer to place in the “not worth my time” bin. But your history shows that until you receive a pushback, you will continue to expand your prior fabrications. Navigating through the ever-expanding skein of lies is tiresome, so it’s time to clear those webs.

Mueller was engaged in a criminal investigation, and as clarified in his refusal to address the issue, collusion is not in and of itself a crime. In relation to the broad range of crimes indicted under the charge of “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” Mueller concluded that no provable crime was committed by the Trump team. That is especially significant in that he expressly refused to clear Trump of obstruction of justice charges, instead proffering a baker’s dozen instances that others might wish to pursue.

A telling point is that while many of the others indicted by Mueller received full pardons, Roger Stone did not.
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Stone was indicted on charges of lying to Congress about what he and then-candidate Trump knew about Russian efforts to discredit Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign, witness tampering and obstruction. The charges related to his efforts during the 2016 presidential race to act as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks.

But days before Stone, who is Trump's longtime friend and political confidant, was to report to prison in July, the president commuted the 40-month prison sentence.

IANAL, but the lawyers I read and listen to say that a pardon would have made Stone ineligible to invoke the 5th Amendment in any future inquiry.

Zelenskyy as well as several other Ukrainian officials said that there was no attempt to extort anything by Trump. That he was not asking for any sort of quid pro quo. Zelenskyy continues to maintain that even well after Trump is out of office and cannot retaliate against him (the claim was that he was scared of Trump so he lied). In fact, he probably would have been well rewarded by old Joe's Administration if he started saying that Trump was trying to blackmail him. And yet he didn't.

Then again, perhaps you're one of those who still thinks Zelenskyy is lying.

I’m not aware of any denials after 2019 when Zelensky was still circumscribed by the need to appease Putin’s puppet. I expect this is yet another example of creating falsehoods to stand in for facts that don’t actually exist. Provide evidence that Zelensky denied a quid pro quo after Trump left office and I’d be happy to recant.

In fact, provide evidence that any of my claims here or elsewhere were incorrect and I’ll do the same. I do so regularly when additional information comes to light.

Because, unlike yourself when spurred on by partisan politics — and at the same time entirely like yourself when it comes to science — I prefer to begin by assembling facts and allowing them to shape my conclusion rather than beginning with a conclusion and allowing it to shape my facts. Elsewhere you’ve claimed training in lying with sufficient skill to fool a polygraph, so perhaps you’ve also acquired the skill to fool yourself.

That would be a shame, but given your obstinacy in the face of objective debunkings, it’s well on the road to becoming my working hypothesis.

[rogue06]

Back in 2018 Trump griped that he had been much tougher on Putin than Obama ever was only for the MSM to mock that.

CNN proclaimed "That's not true!" while WaPo declared that "the facts suggest otherwise" and the supposed "fact checkers" at Politifact issued a "Mostly false" judgment sneering that the claim "immediately drew guffaws among media commentators."

They wanted you to look at only what he said and ignore what he did.

Anyone who has watched Trump or read The Art of the Deal understands he has two basic modes of conducting business. First he either berates you publicly that shocks you with how willing he is to work with you when you are in private. Case in point, "Rocketman" Kim Jong-un of South Korea. The other is playing nice in public while in private he is trying to rip your lungs out. Case in point, Vladimir Putin.

Of course folks who still think that the Collusion Delusion was anything but the hoax it has been exposed as being (but hey some people also think that the earth is flat, so what are you going to do?) want everyone to focus solely on Trump's public treatment of Putin -- what he says -- rather than what he actually has done. The last thing these folks want is for people to look behind the curtain they put up.

The facts that WaPo had claimed "suggest otherwise" in fact do not support that paper's contention, and now with Trump safely out of office, a few of those who kept saying that Trump was soft on Putin -- if not a Russian asset, traitor or Putin's puppet -- have decided it is okay to stop lying and finally tell the truth.

For instance, on CNN's New Day back on New Year's morning, Fareed Zakaria was asked how Biden's policies toward Russia would differ from Trump's, and Zakiria let the cat out of the bag when he said "the dirty little secret" regarding Trump and the Russians was that

" the Trump administration was pretty tough on the Russians. They armed Ukraine. They armed the Poles. They extended NATO operations and exercises in ways that even the Obama administration had not done. They maintained the sanctions."

Oops. That certainly went against the narrative now didn't it?

Aside from why would that be considered a "dirty little secret" the facts showing that this was the case that the WaPo dismissively claimed "suggest otherwise" were plain to see even if the MSM refused to cover them like they did the Hunter laptop story.

So, in reality, it was hardly a secret for anyone who actually bothered to check the record rather mindlessly regurgitating what the MSM spoon fed them.

Moreover, it isn't just Zakaria who has admitted this -- once Trump was safely out of office. Trump deployed such aggressive sanctions against Russia that even Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who has never passed up an opportunity to trash Trump, said that it's "true" that Trump's treatment of Russia was harsher than that of previous presidents.^[1]

That's what happens when you pay attention to what someone actually does rather than to just what they say. As the old adage puts it "Action Speaks Louder Than Words"

And just what exactly was it that Trump did? Here's a short list:

• accused Russia of deploying land-based cruise missiles saying that they violated the "spirit and intent" of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty -- something Obama refused to do.
• bombed Syria's Shayrat Airbase (Russia's allies) when they use chemical weapons in 2017.
• again bombed Syrian forces in 2018 killing over 200 Russian "mercenaries".
• tried to get Merkel to stop importing natural gas from Russia which would deal a serious blow to the Russian economy.
• sent weapons, including a bunch of anti-tank missiles, and not just blankets and well-wishes to Ukraine so they can fight the Russians.
• facilitated the sale of more coal to energy-strapped Ukraine
• sent Patriot missiles to Poland which had begging for them for years.
• shifted a couple thousand U.S. troops from bases in Western Europe to Poland, which while largely symbolic, infuriated the Russians just like selling them the anti-missile defense systems did.
• like with Poland, Trump supplied the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with arms and training along with money to help them prevent Russian cyber attacks, again pissing off the Russians who think of those countries as theirs.
• imposed stricter sanctions^[2] than those initially called for by Congress including imposing sanctions on Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally.
• ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats and closure of Russian consulate in Seattle in response to Russia's poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal (Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov declared that the expulsion of the total of 153 Russian diplomats by 28 countries was the result of the Trump Administration "blackmailing" other nations).
• sanctioned four Russian entities and seven individuals in response to their attempt to interfere in U.S. midterm elections, including Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known as "Putin's chef" because he has his hands in so many pies
• approved sanctions placed on builders of the Nord Stream 2 Russia-to-Germany gas pipelines.^[3]

There is also a Brookings Institute analysis of the Trump Administration's record with Russia published in December 2019 found it had taken 52 actions against the Russians, both severe and minor, but try and tell that to the cognitively challenged TDS crowd.

And while written by a couple of Trump's former senior intelligence officials (hence has a dog in the fight), here's a piece from a few weeks back regarding what Trump was doing to Putin and why the latter didn't invade Ukraine under Trump when he invaded countries while Bush, Obama and now old Joe was/is president: Fear Of Donald Trump Kept Putin From Invading Ukraine. Here’s How Trump Pulled It Off They also cover some of the actions Trump took regarding Putin and Russia.

All of this was in sharp contrast to what took place after that comical "Great Reset" under Obama which appears to have been a plan to bribe Putin into behaving in a civilized manner (while simultaneously enriching the Biden and Clinton clans), until their sharp pivot toward Ukraine.





1. as an aside Gates thinks that old Joe has been wrong about everything his entire political career -- an assessment he is far from being alone in making.

2. to be fair this has been a bit of a mixed bag in that earlier Trump expressed reluctance about enforcing some sanctions that he had signed into law. But in the end his placing harsher economic restrictions on Russian oligarchs (more than just Skripal) close to Putin hurt the latter enormously. Putin is thought to have illegally amassed tens of billions of dollars, but he can't hold all that wealth in his own name, so he appointed his oligarch cronies to be his trustees. Sanctioning his buddies was effectively putting sanctions on Putin himself

3. Old Joe removed those sanctions which was a blessing to Putin and the Russian economy while shutting down the Keystone pipeline here, that, along with a few similar moves, turned us from finally becoming energy independent after decades of not being so, into being energy dependent again. In only 6 months the demented duffer was begging OPEC and Putin to increase their production in order to meet our demand

[rogue06]

"Rocketman" Kim Jong-un is the supreme leader of NORTH Korea not South Korea as I mistakenly wrote.

[rogue06]

[...]

I’m not aware of any denials after 2019 when Zelensky was still circumscribed by the need to appease Putin’s puppet. I expect this is yet another example of creating falsehoods to stand in for facts that don’t actually exist. Provide evidence that Zelensky denied a quid pro quo after Trump left office and I’d be happy to recant.

In fact, provide evidence that any of my claims here or elsewhere were incorrect and I’ll do the same. I do so regularly when additional information comes to light.

Because, unlike yourself when spurred on by partisan politics — and at the same time entirely like yourself when it comes to science — I prefer to begin by assembling facts and allowing them to shape my conclusion rather than beginning with a conclusion and allowing it to shape my facts. Elsewhere you’ve claimed training in lying with sufficient skill to fool a polygraph, so perhaps you’ve also acquired the skill to fool yourself.

That would be a shame, but given your obstinacy in the face of objective debunkings, it’s well on the road to becoming my working hypothesis.

Why would Zelenskyy feel the need to deny that Trump was blackmailing him once Trump was out of office? If anything, if Trump was as you imagine, trying to blackmail Zelenskyy, he would be out there denouncing him. Such a move would have made him a darling of the left with more government money headed his way than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams.

It's just that sort of condition that you demand which exposes that you will never concede anything regardless of the facts. You are way too far gone in your TDS and will always dig up some sort of excuse.

Btw, have you ever thought of charging Trump rent for living in your head like that?

trump living in head.jpg
Trump will be living in your head rent free for decades to come

[Ronson]

Why would Zelenskyy feel the need to deny that Trump was blackmailing him once Trump was out of office? If anything, if Trump was as you imagine, trying to blackmail Zelenskyy, he would be out there denouncing him. Such a move would have made him a darling of the left with more government money headed his way than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams.

I read the transcript of that phone call a few times and I can't see that Trump was even hinting at blackmailing Zelensky. It was basically, "If you can do something, we'd appreciate it." No demand for results, no demand for proof that he was investigating anything, no attachment to anything else. It was a fluid conversation with unconnected subjects. Obviously, that's how Zelensky took it.

Now, if someone wants to argue that by virtue of being the POTUS, along with the power of the office and the perks that can be bestowed from it, makes any suggestion whatsoever from Trump to be interpreted as blackmail, then we need to go back and investigate every call ever made by a US president. Because I think they all need to be impeached.

[rogue06]

I read the transcript of that phone call a few times and I can't see that Trump was even hinting at blackmailing Zelensky. It was basically, "If you can do something, we'd appreciate it." No demand for results, no demand for proof that he was investigating anything, no attachment to anything else. It was a fluid conversation with unconnected subjects. Obviously, that's how Zelensky took it.

Now, if someone wants to argue that by virtue of being the POTUS, along with the power of the office and the perks that can be bestowed from it, makes any suggestion whatsoever from Trump to be interpreted as blackmail, then we need to go back and investigate every call ever made by a US president. Because I think they all need to be impeached.

It pretty much required Adam Schiff's "interpretation" which was to be passed off as the actual call itself until Trump ruined the plan by taking the step of declassifying the call so people could read it for themselves. Without the Schiff/MSM spin, there weren't really a whole bunch of folks who thought Trump was demanding quid pro quo.

[Ronson]

It pretty much required Adam Schiff's "interpretation" which was to be passed off as the actual call itself until Trump ruined the plan by taking the step of declassifying the call so people could read it for themselves. Without the Schiff/MSM spin, there weren't really a whole bunch of folks who thought Trump was demanding quid pro quo.

Democrats were incensed that Trump even asked. Imagine if - instead of Hunter Biden - the subject of the request was the son of some Republican senator. They wouldn't have cared, or maybe even appreciated it.

I heard some Leftist talking head claim that no US president could make such a request without it being interpreted as quid pro quo. That's so ridiculous as to stifle any POTUS from every having a conversation as such, unless it's only about the weather.

[Juvenal]

Zelenskyy continues to maintain that even well after Trump is out of office and cannot retaliate against him (the claim was that he was scared of Trump so he lied).

Why would Zelenskyy feel the need to deny that Trump was blackmailing him once Trump was out of office?

[Juvenal]

I read the transcript of that phone call a few times and I can't see that Trump was even hinting at blackmailing Zelensky.

The term you're looking for is extortion. In the case of blackmail, a reward is demanded for covering up the victim's misdeeds. Extortion involves threats of misdeeds consequent to a failure to make payment.

The payment request occurred immediately following Zelensky's request for military aid.
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Zelensky: ... I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for next steps. Specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The· President: I would like you to do us a favor though ...

It needs to be noted that at the time of this conversation, both participants were aware that the allocated aid was already overdue. This is really old news, and you're apparently missing important details, and I could use a refresher myself, so ...

The Hold On Ukraine Aid: A Timeline Emerges From Impeachment Probe
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One thing all parties in the impeachment saga can agree on: $391 million in security assistance earmarked for Ukraine was withheld this past summer by the Trump White House and released on Sept. 11.

The Pentagon announced the plan to provide $250 million in aid on June 18. Trump began asking about the aid on June 19 after hearing about the report aid in the Washington Examiner.

The original date of the hold was never determined, but an unofficial indefinite hold on the aid was known to be in place on July 3. The hold was placed at the direction of the president. The administration was informed the hold could violate the Impoundment Control Act on July 19, as a hold could prevent the funds from being allocated before they expired.

Despite that information, the hold was signed off by the same career official at the OMB who'd warned of possible violation of the ICA on July 25, the day of the phone call with Zelensky. That hold was temporary and valid through Aug 5.

On July 30, a Trump appointee took over responsibility for the hold, and signed off on "at least a half dozen" additional temporary holds through early September.

The hold was made public by Politico on August 28. The hold was lifted on September 11, just under three weeks before the funding expired, leaving not quite enough time to allocate all of the funds.

It was basically, "If you can do something, we'd appreciate it." No demand for results, no demand for proof that he was investigating anything, no attachment to anything else. It was a fluid conversation with unconnected subjects. Obviously, that's how Zelensky took it.

That conclusion is contradicted by two emails received from the Ukrainian embassy hours after the phone call.

Again, Trump's first ask was an investigation to see if Crowdstrike had stored DNC servers in Ukraine. I don't believe I'd describe that as fluid, and while I agree it was unconnected with reality, it was directly connected to Russian disinformation at the time.

[Ronson]

The term you're looking for is extortion. In the case of blackmail, a reward is demanded for covering up the victim's misdeeds. Extortion involves threats of misdeeds consequent to a failure to make payment.

Corrected.

The payment request occurred immediately following Zelensky's request for military aid.
.

Zelensky: ... I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for next steps. Specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

The· President: I would like you to do us a favor though ...

That doesn't take into account the rambling, disconnected nature of Trump's conversations. Like recently, when asked about the future of Ukraine, Trump launched into green energy and windmills. He apparently hadn't finished his train of thought.

... A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it's something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine...

... I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it...

That finishes his train of thought. Again, Zelensky doesn't connect the dots that way you do. He saw no contingency. In fact, it appears you are including Zelensky's comment into Trump's comments, about "We are ready to continue to cooperate for next steps." It wasn't Trump's suggestion about cooperation.

It needs to be noted that at the time of this conversation, both participants were aware that the allocated aid was already overdue. This is really old news, and you're apparently missing important details, and I could use a refresher myself, so ...

The Hold On Ukraine Aid: A Timeline Emerges From Impeachment Probe
.

One thing all parties in the impeachment saga can agree on: $391 million in security assistance earmarked for Ukraine was withheld this past summer by the Trump White House and released on Sept. 11.

You know, that timeline also suggests that Trump was curious whether or not Ukraine had hacked into the DNC servers. Nobody seems to consider this as a possible motive why Trump held up the funding (assuming he had any reason beyond wanting to know what it was for at the time).

The Pentagon announced the plan to provide $250 million in aid on June 18. Trump began asking about the aid on June 19 after hearing about the report aid in the Washington Examiner.

The original date of the hold was never determined, but an unofficial indefinite hold on the aid was known to be in place on July 3. The hold was placed at the direction of the president. The administration was informed the hold could violate the Impoundment Control Act on July 19, as a hold could prevent the funds from being allocated before they expired.

Despite that information, the hold was signed off by the same career official at the OMB who'd warned of possible violation of the ICA on July 25, the day of the phone call with Zelensky. That hold was temporary and valid through Aug 5.

July 23rd was Zelensky's victory for a governing mandate. The phone call was the 25th.

On July 30, a Trump appointee took over responsibility for the hold, and signed off on "at least a half dozen" additional temporary holds through early September.

The hold was made public by Politico on August 28. The hold was lifted on September 11, just under three weeks before the funding expired, leaving not quite enough time to allocate all of the funds.

That conclusion is contradicted by two emails received from the Ukrainian embassy hours after the phone call.

Again, Trump's first ask was an investigation to see if Crowdstrike had stored DNC servers in Ukraine. I don't believe I'd describe that as fluid, and while I agree it was unconnected with reality, it was directly connected to Russian disinformation at the time.

So, you are suggesting that Trump was duped by Russian disinformation? I thought he was in on it (being Putin's puppet and all)?

ETA: I forgot to add: Assuming your take is the correct one, how is what Trump did any worse than what Biden did as VP? When he threatened to cut off aid unless Poroshenko fired Ukraine's prosecutor? THAT is quid pro quo - Biden bragged about it being so.