| Well, folks, a mere 11 days after reportedly asking President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether he could strike Moscow with weapons provided by the US — an act that Marc Champion says “nobody in their right mind would suggest” — President Donald Trump now claims he’s on “nobody’s side” and just wants the killing to stop. Obviously, blowing up the capital city of an anxious nuclear superpower with long-range missiles would not help humanity, which is likely why the White House clarified Trump’s remarks, saying he was “just asking a question, not encouraging further killing.” Yet plenty of Trump’s actions have done just that. “Since returning to office, Trump hasn’t just refused to authorize any new aid for Ukraine, he at times interfered with the shipment of arms – including for air defense – already authorized by his predecessor and en route to Kyiv. He also gave away key Ukrainian negotiating cards before talks with Russia even began, including acceptance that the country would never join NATO,” Marc writes. “These were at best acts of enormous naivete on Trump’s part, requiring him to believe that if he made unilateral concessions to a career KGB officer who has mired himself in Europe’s largest war since 1945, the favor would be returned.” By now, though, the US president knows Putin isn’t big on favors. Andreas Kluth says Trump’s 50-day ceasefire deadline — which states the US will tariff any country (including China and India) buying Russian oil and gas by 100% — is evidence that Washington “finally appears ready again to up the pressure on Moscow.” In addition, Trump plans on sending lots more weapons to Ukraine — billed to Europe, of course. “For anybody who last paid attention in February, these gestures must seem like a volte-face. That was when Trump, sitting in the same chair but next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, excoriated his guest for having ‘no cards’ and blamed the victim, Kyiv, for the war instead of the aggressor, Moscow.” Still, Andreas is pleased by Trump’s new outlook, calling it “great news, not only to the valiant Ukrainians but also to America’s European allies, who are nowadays more used to playing the role of adversaries in Trump’s trade wars.” Speaking of those allies: Lionel Laurent says France’s Emmanuel Macron and the UK’s Keir Starmer are busy coordinating Europe’s two nuclear arsenals. “This is all helpful in preventing the complex global ‘balance of terror’ from being too lopsided, even if the reality is that London and Paris’s combined 500-plus warheads only account for a fraction of those owned by Russia and the US,” Lionel writes. “With both France and the UK also pledging to collaborate on conventional weapons, from missile production to artificial intelligence, it’s a signal that they intend to be heard by Donald Trump, who is pushing NATO allies to step up on security, and Vladimir Putin, who has been waiting for European resolve to crumble for years.”  | | | I can’t decide what’s more depressing: The fact that Patricia Lopez says the US just cut a program that helps low-income young Americans ages 16-24 get jobs? Or the fact that Noah Feldman says the Supreme Court’s conservative majority just gave President Trump the green light to shutter the Department of Education in an unsigned order with absolutely zero explanation? The cherry on top of all this awfulness is that while the youngest Americans face shrinking educational and employment opportunities, Lisa Jarvis says their physical and mental health is deteriorating, too. “A new study in JAMA uses extensive data to paint a comprehensive picture of how America’s children are faring,” she writes. “Whether it’s death rates, chronic disease, mental health or any of the 170 measures captured in the study, the overall message is a crisis in children’s health.” Lisa zooms in on one statistic to show just how bleak the situation is: “Children in the US were 80% more likely to die than those born in other similarly wealthy countries.” As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. goes after food dyes and pesticides, kids are dying from guns, car crashes, suicide and drugs — trends that won’t go away by merely weeding out ultra-processed foods: You wouldn’t have known any of that by reading RFK Jr.’s recent MAHA report, though. Lisa says it “does not mention the words ‘gun’ or ‘firearm’ even once, nor does it address the socioeconomic disparities underpinning those deaths.” It also fails to acknowledge the damage that children will incur from Trump’s signature tax law, which slashes more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and cuts much-needed SNAP funding. In chipping away at health care, education and employment, the Trump administration is putting future generations on far worse footing than those that came before them. |
