One Very Lame Duck
Joe Biden hopped aboard Air Force One on Thursday heading to Berlin, where he met with European leaders for what will be the last time of his presidency.
He is now the lamest of lame ducks.
Topic A was Ukraine — or was it Trump? For by now, the two have become interchangeable in the minds of European leaders.
They are also interchangeable for Ukraine’s president, who kissed the ring at Trump Tower during his recent visit to the UN.
Zelenskyy is hoping the Euros will unlock the empty warehouses of their military arsenals and give him permission to use stand-off missiles supplied by the U.S., Britain, Germany and France to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. Fat chance.
German Chancellor Olof Scholz has already dialed back his support for Ukraine, and been publicly critical of French president Emmanuel Macron, Europe’s most vociferous war hawk.
Little Cookie, as I like to call him because of how my neighbors pronounce his name in the south of France, had his own worries when he met with Biden, having chided Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for rebuffing United Nations calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
After all, he said earlier in the week, Israel owes its existence to a UN resolution.
Even his political allies corrected him on that one, so he held a press conference to reassure everyone that France continued to support Israel’s right to exist, even though his government this week banned Israeli companies from the November 4-7 “Euronaval” defense exhibition.
France, said Macron, was among the first countries to recognize Israel’s declaration of independence. Not exactly, his critics reminded him. France didn’t recognize the state of Israel until fully ten months after independence.
Russia has made greater advances on the ground in Ukraine over the past two months than it has since the beginning of the war, according to the UK Minister of Defense. That is certainly bad news for Zelenskyy, who has been touting his “victory plan” with the Euros and the Biden-Harris folks for several weeks now.
As I say, all eyes are on Trump. The former president has made clear that he views the Ukraine war as a tragedy that never would have happened had he remained in office. He is appalled at the destruction in Ukraine, and in particular, by the vicious and repeated massacres of Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops and mercenaries.
Contrary to the Democrats’ false narrative, Donald Trump has no soft spot for Putin. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. shouldn’t be talking to the Russian strongman. We talked to the Soviets throughout the Cold War. We should be talking to Putin now. It’s one way of avoiding disastrous miscalculations that could lead to a direct war between our two countries.
Increasingly, that seems to be what Biden and Harris want. Lame ducks can do incredibly stupid things during their final months in office.
I discuss Ukraine, as well as Iran’s growing ties with Russia and disturbing developments on the Korean peninsula in this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.
As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. You can listen to the podcast later here.
Yours in freedom.
©2024. Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.
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