Although, to be completely fair, I also had a case of 'Oh, here he goes stepping in it cuz he's pissed' when Trump clapped back by accusing Zelensky of starting the war that has devastated his country.

As much as I am not a fan of the corrupt and manipulative Ukrainian president, that accusation is a bridge too far.

As I told Ed and David when we were discussing it (Ed wrote a great piece on the comment and David on the continuing spat), one could make an arguably strong case that, in point of fact, it was Joe Biden and his toadies who started the war.

I had been thinking about POTATUS and his absolutely infamous 2022 statement about Russia, where he said it was probably okay if Russians only took a little bite out of Ukraine. It was almost as if he was giving Putin permission to blow off a little steam in a cross-border incursion.

President Biden and his White House on Thursday tried to clean up comments he made about Russia during a lengthy news conference the previous day.

On Wednesday, Biden had predicted Russia would invade Ukraine, but suggested there was a split among NATO members about how to respond if Moscow took action that stopped short of sending its troops across the border — something Biden referred to as a "minor incursion." He said:

"I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do."

Zelensky took it the same way - he was like, HELLO?!

We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones. I say this as the President of a great power 🇺🇦

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 20, 2022

But, of course, there was more to it than that which had been bubbling below the surface for years, only needing the vacuum of an empty shell, 'waxed effigy' (as VDH put it today) president to blow up in.

Today, I found even more evidence to bolster that suspicion when Jake 'The Snek' Sullivan's name surfaced again. 

I heard Trump mention this long ago. Trump knew all along Biden is responsible for "poking the bear". Biden knew Putin would strike if there were thoughts of Ukraine entering NATO, but he REFUSED to publicly state that wasn't going to happen. Biden caused an easily avoidable war.

— Motja (@MotjaB) February 21, 2025

The number of dead Ukrainians is staggering. The money we've poured into that corrupt, authoritarian regime is staggering.

The arrogant, ignorant, incompetent people who ran the puppet Obama/Biden administration have so much blood on their hands - it's staggering.

(There's more in-depth history on NATO, Ukraine, Russia, and neo-cons pushing the borders here.)

They started this, and somehow, Trump will have to end it, even if it happens in a war of words.

Zelensky forgets that he had already put his eggs in the wrong basket with a fine flourish right before the election. We remember who flew to the United States to campaign for Kamala Harris, and you can bet your bippy Donald Trump remembers every word Zelensky said better than Pepperidge Farms.

...You know who wants to keep the butter thick on his bread - and those sports cars in Kyiv - really, really badly?

The Ukrainian hunk. So he's pretty much willing to say anything that might sway American voters to not pick the Orange Man. 

He's not shy about it at all, as David pointed out this morning.

...On the other hand, I have some advice for my not-so-good friend Zelensky: STFU, dude. Trump could be the next President of the United States, J.D. Vance the Vice President, and pissing them off and all Trump's supporters is pretty darn stupid. We are already skeptical that indefinitely supporting a war with no end in sight is in the United States' interest, and Zelenksy mucking about in our elections reinforces that skepticism. 

In his harshest criticism yet of the Republican presidential nominee, the Ukrainian president also described Trump’s running mate JD Vance as “dangerous” and “too radical”.

“His message seems to be that Ukraine must make a sacrifice,” Mr Zelensky said of Mr Vance in an interview with the New Yorker magazine before he flew to the US to present his “Victory Plan” to the White House this week. “But I believe that we have shielded America from total war.”

Well, he's here. Going to tour some bomb factories in Pennsylvania, bitch about Trump, beg for more money, bitch about Trump, etc.

My problem is with how he got here and how he's getting around.

SURE PAYS TO HAVE THAT (D)

Did the Biden-HARRIS administration fly Sweater Boy here from Amsterdam (where he'd arrived courtesy of the taxpayers of the Netherlands) on a United States Air Force C-17...or just pay his freight?

So Trump, having been burned repeatedly by a number of Ukraine-related scandals, lies, and machinations in his first term, knows what and who he's dealing with.

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

There will be no blank checks for Sweaterboy in the mail from this president.

Unsurprisingly, the war of words between Trump and Zelensky didn't just happen overnight, and much of what has made it into the press is, again unsurprisingly, all Zelensky's side of the story.

A couple days ago Trump claimed that Zelensky is widely unpopular in Ukraine and that his approval rating is 4%. The very next day the MSM collectively called Trump a liar and they all parroted the same number, Zelensky has a 57% approval rating.

CNN brought out their little… pic.twitter.com/X9yWu33YFS

— MAZE (@mazemoore) February 21, 2025

...So I look up where this number came from. It came from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. Guess when they released their poll results. The day after Trump made his claim.  

I went to their website and it's barely functional but there was a note about who USED TO FUND them. Check out the picture below. You are going to laugh...

That would be USAID, who used to fund them.

What is refreshing about the Trump White House and his team is they are calling the Ukrainian president out publicly for being a double-dealing liar.

I love it.

The timeline, according to Marc Caputo, went down like this:

Zoom in: Six administration officials tell Axios that during the past nine days there were five incidents that angered Trump, Vice President Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Waltz. Taken together, one administration official said, Zelensky "showed how not to do the 'Art of the Deal' " when it came to courting Trump's support:

• Feb. 12: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Zelensky in Kyiv to offer a proposal that would give the U.S. access to Ukrainian mineral rights in return for de facto U.S. protection. Trump later told reporters Zelensky was "rude" and delayed his meeting with Bessent because he slept in.
• Feb. 14: At the Munich Security Conference, Vance and Rubio met Zelensky to get his approval for the mineral rights deal. But, the officials said, Zelensky surprised the Americans by saying he didn't have the authority to unilaterally approve it without parliament.
• Feb. 15: Zelensky publicly rejected the offer at the conference. White House sources noted that his remarks to reporters — that the deal was "not in the interests of a sovereign Ukraine" — were markedly different from more positive-sounding comments he'd made on X the day before.
• Feb. 18: As Rubio, Waltz and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff sat down with Russian negotiators in Saudi Arabia to talk peace, Zelensky criticized the meeting for occurring without Ukraine at the table. An angry Trump then lashed out at Zelensky at a Mar-a-Lago press conference, falsely suggesting Zelensky had started the war with Russia and had an approval rating of only 4%.
• Feb. 19: Zelensky fired back, saying the U.S. president "lives in a disinformation space." Trump then ratcheted up the pressure by posting on Truth Social that Zelensky, a former actor, was a "modestly successful comedian" who has become a "dictator without elections." Trump has refused to criticize Putin as a dictator.

What's even better is that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during an interview with Catherine Herridge, laid out how the past week of dealing with the slippery Ukrainian president had kind of knocked the Trump team for a loop and completely soured what little was left of the relationship.

What Secretary Rubio is saying here is exactly right. https://t.co/nh2pHzramp

— JD Vance (@JDVance) February 21, 2025

It's a jaw-dropping couple of minutes knowing who they're talking about and what's at stake.

And it's so great to once again have a team with a leader that won't get pushed around because he's worried about how it looks.

Can’t believe im living through the timelines in which it’s 11pm and Trump is on Air Force One calling out Zelensky on where our taxpayer dollars went to.

What a time to be alive. pic.twitter.com/yDPglBX54Q

— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) February 20, 2025

If Zelensky doesn't like being called a dictator, don't act like one. 

If he wants help - and not just cash - saving his country and perhaps his own bacon, maybe he should learn to walk straight instead of relying on his looks.

The people in charge now remember everything, especially when they've been crossed.