President Trump has said that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin may just be “tapping me along” on negotiations over ending the war in Ukraine. But this isn’t really true. While Trump may not be a very stable genius, he is no idiot.
He is, however, a bluffer — in this case, not a very good bluffer. The president never had a plan, and neither of the combatants ever believed he did. That is, the bluff was on us, not them. Trump hasn’t been tapped along because Putin has never retreated from his annexation ends or his savage means. Trump has been tapping the American people along since the early days of the 2024 election campaign, claiming he knew how to end the war instantly but that he couldn’t say publicly what his plan was. He didn’t have a plan. I don’t feel especially deceived because it was always arrant nonsense. But there’s a lot of that wafting around, which is a real problem since the effectiveness of a president on many matters of consequence hinges on credibility.
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