There are no free lunches, more so at Donald Trump’s White House. Plates of rosemary chicken, celery root puree and crème brûlée sat uneaten as an angry POTUS asked his hungry guest from Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky, to leave when he didn’t get his coveted minerals deal.
“Zelenskyy is not ready for peace if America is involved,” an enraged Trump posted on his Truth Social post Friday hours after their 139 minute encounter in the Oval Office erupted into a shouting match with the whole world watching.
“He can come back when he is ready for Peace,” he said accusing Zelensky — who came “oh, all dressed up,” as Trump greeted him with an air of sarcasm, in his trademark drab military shirt and pants — of “disrespecting the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office.”
“You’re playing cards,” Trump told Zelensky earlier as things turned south with the visitor saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t be trusted. “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country.
“This is going to be great television, I will say that,” exclaimed Trump summing up their encounter leading Fox News host to ask Zelensky in an interview later whether he thought the confrontation was pre-planned.
Democrats and other Trump critics later blasted Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accusing them of “doing Putin’s dirty work.”
In Moscow, Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president more than a decade ago, celebrated on social media that “the insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office.”
Trump had jettisoned Ukraine on his way to a larger goal, suggested the New York Times saying the encounter reflected his determination to put aside alliances and commitments to principles in favor of raw great power negotiations.
So was this bluff, bluster, and bullying and public humiliation of the “unelected dictator” of Ukraine — “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that” — just part of negotiating tactics for The Art of the Deal’s author, or was he doing the bidding of Putin?
Even before the Trump-Zelensky encounter turned into a disaster, conspiracy theorists were floating a bizarre idea that Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow. And his file is in Putin’s hands.
In an opinion piece in The Hill, Alexander J. Motyl, a political science professor at Rutgers University-Newark, said a former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, had made the claim on Facebook without providing any documentary evidence.
Two other former KGB agents, Yuri Shvets, now resident in Washington, D.C., and Sergei Zhyrnov living in France, have made similar claims again without any evidence, he said insinuating that their allegations should not be dismissed outright.
Meanwhile, according to the Washington Times, FBI under its new desi director, Kash Patel, is starting an investigation into the origins of the agency’s plan a decade ago to gain access to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by using two female undercover “honey-pot” agents.
The off-the-books investigation, opened in 2015 by then FBI Director James B. Comey, was revealed by an agency whistleblower in a protected disclosure to the House Judiciary Committee last year.
The investigation did not appear to target a specific crime but was more of what agents would describe as a fishing expedition to find anything incriminating against Trump, according to the Times.
Patel also huddled with Trump’s honorary desi spymaster Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, in the East Room of the White House to discuss how to keep their ‘family secrets’ safe without annoying Trump while defying first buddy Elon Musk.
The huddle came after Trump jokingly asked members of his Cabinet to support Musk’s call to 2.3 million federal workers to document five things they accomplished last week, or be thrown out of the room.The joke was met with some nervous laughter, but no one spoke up.
Both Patel and Gabbard as also Pentagon and State Department bosses later told their staff to ignore Musk’s demand.
Earlier Musk took to a stage in Washington, D.C., waving a blinged-out chainsaw gifted by Argentina’s President Javier Melei, as a symbol of his cost-cutting measures, saying “This is the chainsaw for democracy.”
Gabbard also moved to fire more than 100 intelligence officers over explicit chats they allegedly sent around on a newly exposed transgender sex chat room using the National Security Agency’s (NSA) “Intelink” platform, according to the Hill.
They talked about “castration, artificial vaginas, [urine) fetishes, sex polycules, and gangbangs” on a government messaging system during work hours. They also discussed male-to-female transgender surgeries, celebrated the death of televangelist Pat Robertson, and attacked Italians, Christians, conservatives, heterosexuals and Gabbard.
The chat room established under first-of-its-kind transgender inclusion policy at NSA four years ago during Biden administration has since been closed.
Meanwhile, as the gulf between the Associated Press and Trump over Gulf of Mexico/America widened and the White House seized control of its press pool, the New York Times suggested that “in Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-like chill had taken hold with efforts to pressure the news media, punish opponents and tame tycoons evoking Putin’s early days in power.”
But an unfazed Trump reiterating his ambition to take over Gaza Strip, posted a madcap Gaza ‘Riviera’ AI video featuring a song with the lyrics: “Donald Trump will set you free, bringing the life for all to see, no more tunnels, no more fear, Trump Gaza is finally here.”
The bizarre, 30-second clip starting with scenes of destruction in the coastal enclave ends with Trump’s vision of “Gaza 2025,” including a “Trump Gaza” building, golden Trump merch and gigantic golden Trump statue!