Former U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice delivered a damning critique Thursday of Donald Trump and his foreign policy agenda for aiming to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“The fundamentals of national security — that America needs to be strong, that we need to stand with our allies, we need to stand for our values, we have to mean what we say … never used to be under serious question,” she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.
“And along comes Donald Trump, who really is like the Neville Chamberlain of the Republican Party,” Rice continued. “He’s an appeaser. He’s a surrender monkey. And that’s what we’re seeing in his approach to Ukraine.”
Chamberlain exercised a policy of “appeasement” during his tenure as British prime minister in the years leading up to World War II, in a failed attempt to prevent Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler from expanding German control of Europe and waging war on the United Kingdom.
Trump has long been accused of having a curious relationship with Putin and recently refused to endorse a Ukrainian victory over Russia.
LurkeyG on
Thats good
kiltedturtle on
I like the term *surrender monkey* I’m going to use that for the next few post to see if it will start trending.
Wonderful-Variation on
If you see Putin as an ally, and Trump clearly does, then wanting Putin to win isn’t really surrendering.
Your_Perspicacity on
I don’t see what that has to do with Groundskeeper Willie…
BabyFacing on
Cheese eating?
Logan1063 on
Absolutely right…perfect description…jerk!
SvenHudson on
She’s baiting him into calling Harris a monkey.
david4069 on
A hamburder eating surrender monkey?
ohno1tsjoe on
Black woman calling an old white guy a monkey should be well received lol.
BioticVessel on
That’s a great statement, Trump is a surrender monkey! Yes.
Also we, the US must stand by our values. That means we have to have values, Xtian values don’t represent me! The MAGAt values do not represent the country!
OpenImagination9 on
Orange Surrender Monkey should be Trump’s new secret service code name.
bierdimpfe on
He’s rather more of an emotional support blancmange.
christien on
I like that … it’s got a nice ring to it. Somebody’s got to call him out more for kissing roosky’s ass Pooter must have a lot of dirt.
fowlraul on
Monkey’s are smart.
imustbedead on
Call me when these weak ass people call him a rapist.
Choice-of-SteinsGate on
Trump/Vance and their followers are really escalating their use of Kremlin talking points this election cycle in order to rationalize their stance against democrat support for Ukraine in this war. Exploiting yet another conflict to try and bolster Trump’s campaign.
Trump and Vance have pushed the idea of caving into Putin’s demands. Arguing that if we just give Putin what he wants, the war will end, la-dee-frickin-da. However, much like Churchill didn’t negotiate with Hitler because he was a dangerous expansionist looking to consolidate power through any means, while his overtures of peace were merely strategic moves, U.S leaders should take the same stance against Putin.
That’s because Putin is also looking to consolidate power. His goal is to annex Ukraine in its entirety, rob its people of their independence, then continue with his “special military occupation,” err, I mean *operation* into other regions of Eastern Europe, where he will expand his oil empire and create soviet-like “spheres of influence” in every territory that his military seizes.
So, this is as good a time as any to remind and inform people of just how great an asset Trump has been for Putin.
While Trump was president, he frequently repeated Kremlin propaganda about things like the annexation of Crimea, about NATO in particular, and about the threat of Russian cyber attacks and election interference, even siding with Putin over our own intelligence agencies on the matter.
Trump has repeated Putin’s false claims about Ukraine that served as a pretext for his invasion.
Trump said that Putin did *”an amazing job of taking the mantle”* when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. And in 2016, during his presidential campaign, Trump encouraged the annexation of the territory and repeated a Kremlin talking point, saying, *”The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.”*
Trump also refused to condemn Russia for its attacks on Ukrainian military vessels in 2018.
Ahead of the 2016 RNC, the Trump campaign blocked Republican party language that called for the U.S. to send weapons to Ukraine for its war against Russian proxies.
Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump cast doubt on Russian cyber attacks, while at a news conference in July 2016, he pleaded with Russia to continue its attacks, saying, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,”
Trump capitalized off of Russia’s meddling in the election, and used hacked emails to attack Clinton on an almost daily basis. The Mueller report said Trump’s campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”
Trump continued denying that Russia interfered in the election.
After the 2016 election, The Trump transition team begged the Russians not to escalate in response to sanctions that were imposed under Obama. Michael Flynn personally asked the Russian ambassador not to escalate the situation because the incoming Trump admin intended to have a good relationship with Putin.
Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he was considering lifting Russian sanctions, he said, *”If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?”*
In 2017, lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill that included new Russian sanctions. Trump was reluctant to signing the bill and it was reported that the Trump admin demanded that the language in the bill be “watered down.” Those involved said that Trump would have likely shot them down if they didn’t pass with a veto proof majority in both houses.
In response to Putin being labeled a “killer” for murdering his political opponents, Trump said in 2015, *”I haven’t seen any evidence that he killed anybody, in terms of reporters.”* Then again, in response to the same accusations against Putin in 2017, he said, *”There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent?”*
Trump later openly congratulated Putin on his 2018 election win, despite evidence showing it was illegitimate.
Trump even considered returning multiple spy bases to Russia located in Maryland and New York after the Obama administration seized the compounds and expelled all Russian “diplomats.”
Trump shared highly classified intelligence with two senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting in 2017.
Trump has also repeatedly attacked NATO, aligning himself with Putin on one of his most important goals—the weakening of NATO. Trump has called NATO “obsolete,” and has reportedly, on several.occasions, said that he wants to withdraw from NATO entirely.
Trump even proposed working directly with Russia on a cyber security taskforce. It received swift bipartisan backlash and lawmakers had to remind him that Russia was responsible for repeatedly engaging in cyber attacks against the U.S.
The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian Oligarch, and Putin ally, Oleg Deripaska.
Trump also tried to rescind Russian sanctions after defector, Sergei Skripal was poisoned in an assassination attempt by Russia.
Trump abandoned our Kurdish allies and withdrew from Syria, which helped aid Russian proxy wars and gave Putin the opportunity to take over abandoned U.S. military outposts.
Let’s not forget that Trump froze aid to Ukraine and delayed sales of important Javelin, anti-tank missiles when Ukraine was desperate for this aid in its fight against Russian proxies. Javelin missiles in particular have proved to be a major front-line defense for Ukraine against Russian military advances.
Trump has called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “genius,” and “savvy,” and has continuously threatened to not honor our commitment to any NATO countries who are “delinquent.” Encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants to allies who don’t contribute enough to military spending.
Trump described NATO as if it was going bankrupt, saying, *”I went to NATO. And NATO was essentially going out of business ’cause people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down,”*
Trump is severely ignorant of how NATO works.
in 2014, NATO members agreed to move “toward” spending 2 percent of GDP on national defense by 2024.
> The 2 percent is a benchmark that each member should spend on its own defense in order to be able to contribute to the joint defense of the alliance. However, the goal is voluntary, and there is no debt or “delinquency” involved.
Despite what Trump thinks, each country’s spending doesn’t go towards some NATO “fund”, but towards their own defense.
Trump has called the U.S., *”the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing.”* Still not understanding that the funding benchmark has to do with each individual country’s own defense spending. We’re not “paying for NATO.”
NATO was established after WWII to help combat Soviet expansion. Republicans, much like Trump, have argued NATO is irrelevant now that the Soviet Union is gone. This is absurd.
Trump and his supporters have the audacity to claim that if Trump were president, this war would have never happened. Not only is that an egregiously false and delusional hypothetical, but it’s very likely, judging by everything I’ve pointed out, that Trump helped accelerate this war in the first place, and if he is elected again, he will continue to help advance Putin’s autocratic, warmongering and violent agenda.
tomdarch on
Trump also lost Afghanistan and handed the Taliban back thousands of fighters before the US withdrawal.
Travelerdude on
I want to hear Condaleeza Rice criticize Trump. More Republicans in past administrations need to condemn this orangutan.
mankowonameru on
2024 and I’m still thinking about The Simpsons.
hskmp on
The woman who surrendered to Iran’s girl-killing mullahs speaks out. Wonderful. She belongs in prison.
21 Comments
Former U.S. national security adviser Susan Rice delivered a damning critique Thursday of Donald Trump and his foreign policy agenda for aiming to appease Russian President Vladimir Putin during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
“The fundamentals of national security — that America needs to be strong, that we need to stand with our allies, we need to stand for our values, we have to mean what we say … never used to be under serious question,” she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.
“And along comes Donald Trump, who really is like the Neville Chamberlain of the Republican Party,” Rice continued. “He’s an appeaser. He’s a surrender monkey. And that’s what we’re seeing in his approach to Ukraine.”
Chamberlain exercised a policy of “appeasement” during his tenure as British prime minister in the years leading up to World War II, in a failed attempt to prevent Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler from expanding German control of Europe and waging war on the United Kingdom.
Trump has long been accused of having a curious relationship with Putin and recently refused to endorse a Ukrainian victory over Russia.
Thats good
I like the term *surrender monkey* I’m going to use that for the next few post to see if it will start trending.
If you see Putin as an ally, and Trump clearly does, then wanting Putin to win isn’t really surrendering.
I don’t see what that has to do with Groundskeeper Willie…
Cheese eating?
Absolutely right…perfect description…jerk!
She’s baiting him into calling Harris a monkey.
A hamburder eating surrender monkey?
Black woman calling an old white guy a monkey should be well received lol.
That’s a great statement, Trump is a surrender monkey! Yes.
Also we, the US must stand by our values. That means we have to have values, Xtian values don’t represent me! The MAGAt values do not represent the country!
Orange Surrender Monkey should be Trump’s new secret service code name.
He’s rather more of an emotional support blancmange.
I like that … it’s got a nice ring to it. Somebody’s got to call him out more for kissing roosky’s ass Pooter must have a lot of dirt.
Monkey’s are smart.
Call me when these weak ass people call him a rapist.
Trump/Vance and their followers are really escalating their use of Kremlin talking points this election cycle in order to rationalize their stance against democrat support for Ukraine in this war. Exploiting yet another conflict to try and bolster Trump’s campaign.
Trump and Vance have pushed the idea of caving into Putin’s demands. Arguing that if we just give Putin what he wants, the war will end, la-dee-frickin-da. However, much like Churchill didn’t negotiate with Hitler because he was a dangerous expansionist looking to consolidate power through any means, while his overtures of peace were merely strategic moves, U.S leaders should take the same stance against Putin.
That’s because Putin is also looking to consolidate power. His goal is to annex Ukraine in its entirety, rob its people of their independence, then continue with his “special military occupation,” err, I mean *operation* into other regions of Eastern Europe, where he will expand his oil empire and create soviet-like “spheres of influence” in every territory that his military seizes.
So, this is as good a time as any to remind and inform people of just how great an asset Trump has been for Putin.
While Trump was president, he frequently repeated Kremlin propaganda about things like the annexation of Crimea, about NATO in particular, and about the threat of Russian cyber attacks and election interference, even siding with Putin over our own intelligence agencies on the matter.
Trump has repeated Putin’s false claims about Ukraine that served as a pretext for his invasion.
Trump said that Putin did *”an amazing job of taking the mantle”* when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. And in 2016, during his presidential campaign, Trump encouraged the annexation of the territory and repeated a Kremlin talking point, saying, *”The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.”*
Trump also refused to condemn Russia for its attacks on Ukrainian military vessels in 2018.
Ahead of the 2016 RNC, the Trump campaign blocked Republican party language that called for the U.S. to send weapons to Ukraine for its war against Russian proxies.
Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump cast doubt on Russian cyber attacks, while at a news conference in July 2016, he pleaded with Russia to continue its attacks, saying, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,”
Trump capitalized off of Russia’s meddling in the election, and used hacked emails to attack Clinton on an almost daily basis. The Mueller report said Trump’s campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”
Trump continued denying that Russia interfered in the election.
After the 2016 election, The Trump transition team begged the Russians not to escalate in response to sanctions that were imposed under Obama. Michael Flynn personally asked the Russian ambassador not to escalate the situation because the incoming Trump admin intended to have a good relationship with Putin.
Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he was considering lifting Russian sanctions, he said, *”If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?”*
In 2017, lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill that included new Russian sanctions. Trump was reluctant to signing the bill and it was reported that the Trump admin demanded that the language in the bill be “watered down.” Those involved said that Trump would have likely shot them down if they didn’t pass with a veto proof majority in both houses.
In response to Putin being labeled a “killer” for murdering his political opponents, Trump said in 2015, *”I haven’t seen any evidence that he killed anybody, in terms of reporters.”* Then again, in response to the same accusations against Putin in 2017, he said, *”There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent?”*
Trump later openly congratulated Putin on his 2018 election win, despite evidence showing it was illegitimate.
Trump even considered returning multiple spy bases to Russia located in Maryland and New York after the Obama administration seized the compounds and expelled all Russian “diplomats.”
Trump shared highly classified intelligence with two senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting in 2017.
Trump has also repeatedly attacked NATO, aligning himself with Putin on one of his most important goals—the weakening of NATO. Trump has called NATO “obsolete,” and has reportedly, on several.occasions, said that he wants to withdraw from NATO entirely.
Trump even proposed working directly with Russia on a cyber security taskforce. It received swift bipartisan backlash and lawmakers had to remind him that Russia was responsible for repeatedly engaging in cyber attacks against the U.S.
The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian Oligarch, and Putin ally, Oleg Deripaska.
Trump also tried to rescind Russian sanctions after defector, Sergei Skripal was poisoned in an assassination attempt by Russia.
Trump abandoned our Kurdish allies and withdrew from Syria, which helped aid Russian proxy wars and gave Putin the opportunity to take over abandoned U.S. military outposts.
Let’s not forget that Trump froze aid to Ukraine and delayed sales of important Javelin, anti-tank missiles when Ukraine was desperate for this aid in its fight against Russian proxies. Javelin missiles in particular have proved to be a major front-line defense for Ukraine against Russian military advances.
Trump has called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “genius,” and “savvy,” and has continuously threatened to not honor our commitment to any NATO countries who are “delinquent.” Encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants to allies who don’t contribute enough to military spending.
Trump described NATO as if it was going bankrupt, saying, *”I went to NATO. And NATO was essentially going out of business ’cause people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down,”*
Trump is severely ignorant of how NATO works.
in 2014, NATO members agreed to move “toward” spending 2 percent of GDP on national defense by 2024.
> The 2 percent is a benchmark that each member should spend on its own defense in order to be able to contribute to the joint defense of the alliance. However, the goal is voluntary, and there is no debt or “delinquency” involved.
Despite what Trump thinks, each country’s spending doesn’t go towards some NATO “fund”, but towards their own defense.
Trump has called the U.S., *”the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing.”* Still not understanding that the funding benchmark has to do with each individual country’s own defense spending. We’re not “paying for NATO.”
NATO was established after WWII to help combat Soviet expansion. Republicans, much like Trump, have argued NATO is irrelevant now that the Soviet Union is gone. This is absurd.
Trump and his supporters have the audacity to claim that if Trump were president, this war would have never happened. Not only is that an egregiously false and delusional hypothetical, but it’s very likely, judging by everything I’ve pointed out, that Trump helped accelerate this war in the first place, and if he is elected again, he will continue to help advance Putin’s autocratic, warmongering and violent agenda.
Trump also lost Afghanistan and handed the Taliban back thousands of fighters before the US withdrawal.
I want to hear Condaleeza Rice criticize Trump. More Republicans in past administrations need to condemn this orangutan.
2024 and I’m still thinking about The Simpsons.
The woman who surrendered to Iran’s girl-killing mullahs speaks out. Wonderful. She belongs in prison.