So much for the beginning of this beautiful friendship. You well remember Donald Trump fawning all over Kim Jong-Un, saluting his general, and claiming, “We fell in love. He wrote me beautiful letters.” Now, former EU ambassador Gordon Sondland reveals what Trump really said about Little Rocket Man. Foreign Policy:
“‘OK, Mr. President, cut the bullshit. What do you think of Kim?’” Sondland says he asked Trump. “And he goes, ‘That fucker would knife me in the stomach if he had the chance.’”
Sondland recounted this when I asked him what Trump’s Ukraine and Russia policy might look like if he won a second term as president. It’s the biggest question on everyone’s minds across Europe as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags into its third year. In classic Trump fashion, there’s no clear on-paper answer yet. […]
He’s also not shy about sharing his unvarnished opinions of his former boss. In his 2022 book he wrote about his time in government, The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy With Trump and the World, Sondland said Trump was “kind of a dick” when he first met him and “a man with a fragile ego who wants more than anything to feed that ego the way an addict would feed a habit.”
That sounds right. But this next claim is going to blow your mind. Are you sitting down?
Sondland’s point about Trump’s comments on Kim was that Trump has a tendency to lavish praise on strongmen in public—be it the North Korean leader or Russian President Vladimir Putin—but in the end, the former president knows the stakes of the game and has a sober realpolitik approach to national security. “He does not like Putin at all. At all,” Sondland said. “And while he compliments Putin publicly, he does it because it’s a contrarian strategy.”
This is Sondland’s point of view and should be taken as such. I don’t believe that Trump “backs Ukraine to the hilt” but gives lip service to Putin. I think this is delusional. But it’s important to take a look at this because Sondland is somebody who likely would return to government service in a second Trump administration and so his quirky views could conceivably have an impact some day. It’s a day that I hope I don’t live to see, but be prepared, right?
In short, Trump hasn’t spelled out what his second-term Russia policy would be. But Sondland’s views encapsulate one version of what it could look like: a hybrid of the “screw the Washington Blob, throw out the old playbook” MAGA instincts, with a side helping of bombshell social media posts that rock the political waters and dominate headlines—yet spliced together with the peace-through-strength style of Ronald Reagan’s hawkish foreign-policy platform. In Sondland’s view, this still boils down to Trump backing Ukraine to the hilt, even if he throws out public praises of Putin.
Sondland, as well as some (though not all) other former senior Trump national security officials still in the ex-president’s orbit, believes any Ukraine skepticism that Trump expresses publicly is empty rhetoric to cater to his hardcore base of supporters. “He supports Ukraine. He totally understands the stakes. I really believe that,” Sondland said. “But [Trump] is doing a head fake in order to keep his base solidly aligned until he gets through the election.” […]
In short, Trump would be good for Ukraine, Sondland argues. Trump’s flippant talk of abandoning NATO allies that don’t spend enough money on defense or his public praise of Putin is just that—talk. And Trump’s unpredictability could play well into Ukraine’s hands, leaving Putin off kilter and guessing. “Madman theory wrapped in velvet gloves,” as Sondland put it.
Sheer fantasy. But it’s a fantasy to sell to non-MAGA Republicans and Independents that maybe things will not be so horrific if Trump gets reelected. Wrong. Things will be every bit as bad as you know and worse. But I guess we can give points to Sondland for giving it the old college try and making Trump seem somewhat rational, informed, and sane. Trump is none of those things.
Pity the little boy in N.K. didn’t knife the m.f.
I’m surprised Sondland was able to string together two coherent sentences in that interview, given the obviously copious amount of drugs he was using to have presented THAT view of Trump.
Liars lie. Paid liars lie for those who pay them.