On the menu today: As I noted on yesterday’s edition of The Editors podcast, back on March 5, 2025, I wrote that the U.S. government had “effectively switched sides in the Russia-Ukraine War.” I was told that was hyperbolic.
Since then, we’ve seen the Trump administration roll out the red carpet (literally) for Vladimir Putin in Alaska, invite Putin to the G-20 summit, and invite other Russian officials to a separate G-20 meeting. President Trump has also declare that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should be replaced, contradicted his own cabinet about Russia’s help to Iran, downplayed an obvious and ongoing series of Russian hybrid warfare attacks against our European NATO allies, and turned down offers of Ukrainian assistance with drone production.
And of course, now the new plan to purchase potentially millions of tons of Russian diesel fuel.
I think you heard about the oil deal with Russia. That is a big deal. That is massive amounts of oil coming into our country. And I want to thank President Putin, to be honest with you. We have massive amounts of oil . . . coming into our country, and it’s diesel, which is what we want.
(The terms of the deal amount to one day of global demand.)
Yeah, yeah, I was so hyperbolic.
The Old and the Restless
Earlier this month, I noted that Vladimir Putin turned 74; China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, turned 73 in June; and President Trump turned 80 the same month. Three immensely powerful men, with their fingers on the button of nuclear arsenals, all at least eight years past the mandatory retirement age of U.S. commercial airline pilots.
(From Healthline: “A 2020 analysis of the Health and Retirement Study, which involved around 29,000 participants, found that women first experienced cognitive impairment around age 73. Those women who went on to develop dementia did so at about 83 years old. Men, the study found, experienced cognitive decline near age 70 and dementia at 79 years.”)
Each of those three men have access to an extensive national intelligence apparatus that commands copious resources to get their leader the best, most accurate, and most extensive information possible. The entire practice of intelligence-gathering rests on the assumption that a leader with more information makes better decisions than one who has less.
But the best intelligence in the world doesn’t mean much if the ruler’s underlings are afraid to tell him things he doesn’t want to hear, or if the ruler only hears what he wants to hear. Or if the ruler can’t remember what he was told in his intelligence briefings.
We’ve all gotten used to the president of the United States announcing things that are either not true, or not true yet — Trump first claimed the Strait of Hormuz was “COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS” on April 17. That was approximately 100 attacked civilian ships ago. (Last week, attacks on ships in the strait surged to a wartime high.)
Sunday morning, Trump announced, “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had not heard any word of an energy cease-fire, but added, “If President Trump has agreed on this with Putin, please let us know when the ceasefire will begin. We are ready, and we will accept it.”
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say whether Russia had agreed, saying only that “contacts are ongoing.”
Of course, Sunday evening, Ukraine time, the Russian military bombed the Kharkiv thermal power plant (CHP-5). A local official told ABC News the plant was hit at least twice, causing a fire. Overnight into Monday, Russia attacked the gas production facilities of the state company Naftogaz in the Kharkiv region, causing a fire.
Then Monday afternoon, Trump seemed to suggest he believed that by publicly asserting both sides had agreed to the cease-fire, the two countries would stop shooting at each other:
Q: Mr. President, you said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a cease-fire, but both sides say they have not agreed to that.
Trump: Well, they agreed, you know why? Because I said you agree, that’s why. They agreed because I said they agreed and that thing has to get settled. That war is a disaster. Did you see the numbers that just came out this month? Thirty-two thousand, mostly soldiers, were killed, young people, 32,000 killed. That war has to be over with.
Earlier this year, I wondered what Russian generals and other government officials were telling Vladimir Putin about the war. In late June, Putin gave a television interview where he appeared to give a detailed assessment of the battle lines and recent developments in the fighting . . . except nothing he said lined up with reality. Throughout the war, Putin has referred to victories that were never won, and Russian conquests of territory that is still under Ukraine’s control.
Putin’s public comments about the war always make it sound like the Russians are on the verge of a final and decisive victory; he’s a regular Douglas Macgregor. Putin expected to take control of Ukraine within ten days. We are on Day 1,693 since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Discussing Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy facilities, Putin said in that same interview with a Russian journalist on June 28, “There has been damage, but all affected facilities are being quickly restored, and the problems that arise are not critical. Everything is operating steadily and with a substantial margin of resilience.” Putin has not said much about the Ukrainian strikes against his country’s energy infrastructure since those comments.
Russia is fuel rationing, and there are waits of at least an hour to get gasoline. “Hundreds of gas stations have suspended operations, while others limit purchases to as little as five gallons at a time. In many regions, drivers are only served on select days, depending on their license plate number.”
Did Putin think that Russians just weren’t going to notice that gasoline is in short supply? It has not worked out that way:
An August poll by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent public opinion agency, found the vast majority of respondents had encountered the gasoline shortages, with 55 percent complaining it made life more difficult, and 32 percent saying that it “seriously hampered” their daily activities.
When does a leader’s spin and happy talk start to reflect delusion or an inability to deal with reality?
Who informs Xi Jinping in China? As Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote a few weeks ago, whoever Xi trusts, it is a very small group, and not many top military officials seem to stick around for long:
Xi takes fewer military risks, so his errors aren’t so obvious — but they’re very real. Xi rules a system he doesn’t trust, which in turn doesn’t trust him. He has carried out a near-continuous military purge that has removed more than 100 senior officers since 2023. He has ousted five of the seven members of the Central Military Commission. Xi also seems wary of China’s technology elite, the jewel in his crown, levying a huge fine on Alibaba and sidelining its founder, Jack Ma, before rehabilitating him last year.
I noted Xi’s age. There are almost always rumors about a dictator’s health, but last month the Wall Street Journal quoted a veteran China analyst who laid out the reasons to wonder if a lifetime of bad health habits are starting to catch up with Xi:
Dennis Wilder, a former senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, now at Georgetown University, describes Xi as a lifelong smoker, overweight, no fan of exercise — and a man long fond of a drink. Qin Gang, China’s former foreign minister, once told Wilder that Xi “loved to drink,” and that the two had grown close on long flights over moutai, the fiery grain liquor prized by China’s elite.
“They would drink themselves silly,” Wilder recalled.
China has a long history of concealing the infirmities of its leaders. Wilder recalled the lengths Beijing went to in Mao’s final years.
“When he met with Nixon in Beijing in 1972, there was a full hospital behind the screen,” he said. “He was so ill that when Nixon arrived, they didn’t know when they’d see Mao — and suddenly got a call to come within 15 minutes, because they were trying to figure out when he’d be well enough.”
Nothing like learning that a man with access to a rapidly expanding nuclear arsenal likes to “drink himself silly.” It makes you yearn for the good old days of . . . er, Boris Yeltsin.
Ignatius concluded that the era of strongmen was coming to an end. Everything comes to an end eventually, but Trump will remain president until January 20, 2029, and Putin and Xi have given no sign they’re interested in retirement and are likely to rule until they die.
But I’m sure those dictators’ minds and decision-making abilities will be just swell until their departure flight to Hades, right?
ADDENDUM: Some whiny snowflake argued that writing about the scandals surrounding Kimberly Guilfoyle amounted to me being “busy turning [my] guns on [my] own party.”
Hey, I’m a registered independent and an old-school Reagan conservative. I don’t have a party; with a handful of exceptions, today’s GOP doesn’t stand for those values, principles, and policies by a long shot.
Anyway, as you probably saw, the scandals surrounding Guilfoyle spurred her resignation.
Guilfoyle’s behavior in the run-up to her confirmation and while serving as ambassador must rank as the most reckless thing she’s ever done . . . okay, the second most reckless thing she’s ever done.