The Wall Street Journal Roasts ‘Starry-Eyed’ Trump for Being ‘the Only Person in the World Still Surprised’ by Putin
AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File
The Wall Street Journal roasted President Donald Trump for being “the only person in the world still surprised” by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in a new editorial urging the GOP to push through new sanctions on Putin’s regime.
Trump recently expressed his displeasure with Putin’s continued aggression toward Ukraine, telling reporters that he doesn’t “know what the hell happened to” the ex-KGB agent and writing on Truth Social that while he’s “always had a very good relationship with Putin,” the autocrat had “gone absolutely CRAZY!” and was “needlessly killing a lot of people.”
Reflecting on Trump’s statements, the Journal observed that “Mr. Trump may be the only person in the world still surprised by how Mr. Putin is behaving. The Russian is the same man he’s been for two decades, bent on reconstituting as much of the old Soviet empire as he can get away with. Ukraine is his obsession.”
“He’s not going to modify his ambitions merely because Mr. Trump alternates between begging for peace and scolding outbursts on social media,” it added.
The influential center-right newspaper went on to argue that while “Mr. Trump and his advisers fancy themselves steely-eyed realists on foreign policy,” “on Mr. Putin they are starry-eyed idealists,” and “Mr. Trump’s naivete is helping Russia continue the killing as long as Mr. Putin wants.”
“The good news is that the U.S. Senate still has some genuine realists when it comes to Russia. As GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham writes in a letter nearby, he has 82 co-sponsors on a bill that would hit countries that buy Russian oil and gas with tariff sanctions,” concluded the Journal. “If Mr. Trump signaled that he supports the Graham-Tom Cotton–Richard Blumenthal sanctions bill, it would sail through the Senate. Combined with the promise of more arms to Ukraine when the current supply runs out, these sanctions might change Mr. Putin’s calculations about the price of war. But GOP Senators can act whether or not Mr. Trump approves. “
