rgmwa

$14m per trip to the golf course apparently.

I agree with all that, Nev including with repeating myself.

What he said was relevant and accurate but not very smart given how easily Trump takes offence. It will simply make him more determined to apply his tariffs to us. As an ex-PM, what Turnbull says gets noticed. Public comments like that are not very helpful when the government of the day has to negotiate with a vindictive narcissist to get the best trade terms for the country.

I’m not disagreeing with what Turnbull said. He’s quite right. But as an ex-PM he shouldn’t be making himself a kind of de facto spokesman for Australia knowing that the government has to deal with Trump and his tariff threats. All he’s doing is making negotiating with Trump harder. It’s shortsighted on his part, notwithstanding that what he’s saying is right.

Yes but Turnbull is no longer the leader and he should be more aware of the likely consequences of what he says.

Turnbull hasn’t made it any easier for Albo by laying into Trump. That wasn’t a very smart thing to do.

Yes it was weird. I thought the link might have been hijacked unless something is going on. Phone seems to be OK. It’s behaving normally.

Red I clicked on that link and got a message saying my phone was infected with two viruses and was directed to a website to remove it. I didn’t, thinking it could be a scam.

Trump's latest comments about the war: “I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine. And they don’t have the cards,” Trump said. “In terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia.” Asked whether the Russian leader was taking advantage of the pause in US intelligence sharing and military aid to Ukraine, Trump replied: “I actually think he is doing what anybody else would do.” Trump knows he is facilitating Russia's latest missile and drone attacks by stopping the munitions and turning off Ukraine's electronic warfare support, and then blandly agrees that Putin is taking advantage of the situation to bomb the country even more `like anyone else would'. He is supposed to be in NATO but is literally helping Putin to attack Ukraine. He knows Ukraine is in a weak position `because they don't have the cards'. He then has the gall to say he wants the killing to stop. The depravity of this guy is appalling.

… of those who bothered to vote, so more like only 30% of the eligible voters.

I agree that the returning vets at that time were generally treated pretty shamefully after having serving their country, whether they were volunteers or called up. However, are you blaming all that your two years in the army? It sounds as though you expected the army to find you a paying job and a place to live. Did your mates feel the same way? What did they do when they got out? What job did you have and where did you live before you went in?

Same as Nev

Trump's negotiating skills, or lack of are becoming clearer. First he imposed arbitrary 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico's auto industries, among other trade items, allegedly because of drugs crossing the border. Then he delayed them by a month while Canada and Mexico took significant steps to reduce the drug imports, most of which are brought into America by US citizens anyway. The last few weeks have shown that the additional drug prevention measures have been pretty effective so Canada and Mexico expected that they would be in the clear because they had done what was asked. However Trump imposed the tariffs anyway because he said the measures weren't good enough and had also decided he now also wanted the auto industries to move all their production to the USA. Because the goalposts had suddenly moved, the CEO's of the three major auto manufacturers phoned him and pointed out the problems his tariffs would cause in their industry - like major cost increases to the price of vehicles. So now he has suddenly back flipped and postponed the tariffs for another month to supposedly give the industry time to shift their production to the US. They can't do that in a month of course, so no doubt he will impose the tariffs again. Or maybe not. Who knows? Trump's supporters think he's a master strategist, but in reality he's the same opportunistic, arrogant, unethical and ignorant bully he's always been. Between the global tariffs, his fight with NATO and Ukraine, his cozying up to Putin, the decimation of Government institutions and the disruption to services that will bring, his failure to reduce the cost of living, and his chaotic management style, his popularity will head downhill pretty quickly in the next weeks and months. His ratings in the opinion polls and the stock market are already dropping, and those are the two things he cares about most. He is going to fail the job of running country just like he failed in his business ventures. Hopefully his successor can undo some of the damage in time, but it is already too late to salvage America's place in the world order. He has already trashed that and turned the clock back at least eight decades. He is the complete disaster he accuses others of being.

I wonder how many others weren’t so lucky. I was in China in 2010 and witnessed an accident where the bike rider didn’t get up again.

Whatever you do, don't tell Trump.

It's pretty clear you think the Ukrainians should just let Putin take over their country and that way nobody would get killed. The problem is the Ukrainians would then lose their independence, their resources and their country, and Putin would simply move onto the next target in his efforts to rebuild the Soviet Union - and Trump is only too keen to help him do it. It's pretty sad that Trump is only interested in defending Ukraine if he can Zelenskyy to apologise for telling the truth and get a deal for his rare earth minerals off the ground (he actually calls them `raw earth minerals' - can't even get that right). Ukraine only has value to him if his financial investment may be threatened. The idea that he might defend a weaker country against a power hungry dictator as a matter of principle and for the safety of his allies is not a concept that he can get his head around. The sooner the US dumps him, the better.

It’s aid to help the Ukrainians defend themselves from being overrun by Putin’s armies. Your solution (and Trump’s) would be to just step aside and let him do it. Nobody wants to keep the war going except Putin, and least of all the Ukrainians.

Probably here from the official source of misinformation, courtesy of Musk's minions: https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/02/at-usaid-waste-and-abuse-runs-deep/

Zelenskyy has a law degree but never worked in the legal field, however he became a leader of his country. Trump has an economics degree and became a criminal and a leader of his country. Rumour has it that Trump got someone else to sit his exams, so there is also some doubt about his degree.

Western leaders had no illusions about Stalin, unlike Trump's illusions about Putin.

Yes, she’s full of BS.

That puzzles me too, but as OME said she is very good at what she does. I think she is very smart and articulate but either so naive or wilfully blind that she believes everything she is saying. She may eventually realise that the actions of the corrupt regime she has been expertly defending are turning more and more pear shaped. Others like Stefanie Grisham and Alyssa Farah Griffin eventually figured out what Trump was all about and turned on him.

Zelenskyy wants Trump to guarantee that when Putin inevitably breaks whatever agreement they eventually sign up to (as he has done with past agreements), the US will stand with NATO and other allies including Australia, and defend Ukraine against Putin's treachery. That might mean providing more arms and ammunition, cash and possibly to participate in supplying peacekeeping forces. The problem is that Trump is on Putin's side, so it's not going to happen. The end result of the war was supposed to be to get the Russians out of Ukraine, which doesn't seem like a lot to ask for provided your name isn't Putin. Unlike Biden, Trump is not interested in making sure the war ends in Ukraine's favour. He wants Putin to come out ahead because he wants to do deals with Russia. As far as Trump is concerned Ukraine is just a roadblock that he wants to get out of the way.

Zelenskyy has just issued this statement, but unfortunately I doubt whether Trump or Vance will bother to read it: Here is President Zelenskyy's full statement expressing gratitude to the United States...

This commentary by George Brandis sums the situation up pretty well: Donald Trump has said that he wanted each day of his presidency to be like an episode of a reality TV show. On Friday, local time, he certainly achieved that. At the end of his astonishing Oval Office argument with Volodomyr Zelensky Trump said, with apparent satisfaction: “This is going to be great television.” It is easy to be distracted by the sheer awfulness of the scene: the presidents of two nations who are, at least theoretically, meant to be allies, bickering in full view of the world’s media as Ukraine’s fate hangs in the balance. But it is important to look through the pyrotechnics on display to appreciate what Trump’s behaviour reveals, not just for the future of Ukraine, but about his view of America’s role in the world. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.Credit:Bloomberg Trump’s petulance, and his evident personal disdain for Zelensky, make it difficult to watch the exchange without cringing. The point at which things begin to go off the rails is when Vice President J.D. Vance – appearing to relish the role of provocateur – accuses Zelensky of being “disrespectful”. He wasn’t, he was merely putting Ukraine’s position. Zelensky asked Vance a question – it proved to be a mistake From that point, first Vance, then Trump, berates Zelensky with increasingly excitable belligerence, as Zelensky – patiently and without discourtesy – stands his ground. It was Trump and Vance, not Zelensky, who were disrespectful, a point European leaders, who rallied behind Zelensky, made in the subsequent hours. Trump may be the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, but Zelensky is the president of a large nation too, albeit one in a desperately weak position. Trump’s behaviour revealed not just contempt for Zelensky, but utter lack of concern for the victims of Russia’s invasion. The egregious criminality of the invasion itself, and Russia’s conduct since – targeting of civilian populations, deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, gross violations of the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war (including the castration of teenage soldiers) were the furthest things from Trump’s mind. All he wanted was a deal that favoured US interests in exploiting Ukrainian critical minerals. In dealing with a fellow world leader who stood in his way, Trump behaved less like an American president than a Roman emperor dressing down a visiting barbarian chieftain. The issue to which Zelensky repeatedly returned – both in the Oval Office and, at greater length, in his interview with Brett Baier on Fox News immediately afterwards – was the necessity, as part of the overall deal with America concerning the joint exploitation of Ukraine’s critical minerals, of a US “security guarantee”. No such guarantee was part of the agreement which Zelensky left unsigned. Earlier in the week, when they made separate visits to the White House, both UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, had also spoken of the need of US security guarantees (or a “US backstop”, in Starmer’s words). Trump has given no indication to any of them that the US would provide any form of security guarantee, instead promising the presence of US companies on the ground in Ukraine to exploit its minerals, would be enough to deter Putin. When Zelensky insisted to Trump that Putin was not to be trusted, Trump – evidently taking offence on Putin’s behalf – told him that while Putin may have lied to Obama and to Biden, he wouldn’t lie to him. On such flimsy hopes do the future peace of Europe now depend. Can NATO survive Trump? Although a security guarantee is, for Zelensky, the sine qua non of any deal with the United States, even if Trump were to relent and offer one, what use would it be? Trump is no less a pathological liar than Putin. A security guarantee from Trump would not be worth the paper it is written on, particularly since – as was obvious from his confrontation with Zelensky – Trump’s sympathies lie with Putin anyway. One immediate result of the meeting was the Republican Party rallying behind Trump. Most ominously, influential South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham – who, although close to Trump, was seen as one of Zelensky’s few Republican allies on Capitol Hill – was swift to condemn Zelensky for disrespecting Trump, and call for his resignation. Republicans have never much liked Zelensky. After this debacle, they will begin to demonise him. Of deepest concern is what now happens to NATO. Its support for Zelensky has been, and remains, steadfast. (So, to Anthony Albanese’s credit, has been Australia’s.) So far, talk of the European democracies deploying armed personnel to Ukraine has been limited to policing a ceasefire. If there is a ceasefire policed by European boots on the ground, what happens if it is breached and fighting breaks out between Russian and NATO troops? It seems hardly likely that Trump would, in those circumstances, commit America to armed conflict with Russia. If the war continues without further American support, Europe’s limited capacity to continue to arm Ukraine makes it very likely that Russia will prevail. When, last Monday, I published a column in this masthead asking if NATO would survive Donald Trump, and quoted an old remark of Kevin Rudd’s that Trump was a traitor to the West, I wondered if I had gone too far. In the breakneck speed at which the global order is re-sorting itself, with Trump’s America abandoning allies and embracing autocrats, it seems I did not go far enough. George Brandis Former high commissioner to the UK and federal attorney-general George Brandis is a former high commissioner to the UK and a former Liberal senator and federal attorney-general. He is now a professor at ANU.