The Dictatorship
Trump has no issue burning bridges. But he should think twice about this one.
NATO is in serious trouble, and with it, the post-Cold War international order. For the first time in the alliance’s 75-year history, its most powerful member is pulling back and may be effectively pulling out.
In Brussels, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lectured that the United States could not be “focused on the security of Europe,” because “consequential threats to our homeland” mean the U.S. must focus “on security of our own borders.” But countering Russia in Europe and managing the U.S.-Mexico border are not trade-offs; the U.S. can and should do both.
America is effectively switching sides, from helping Ukraine resist Russia’s attack to helping Russia gain concessions.
Hegseth’s statement makes more sense as an excuse — one that might play with the MAGA base back home, but with few elsewhere — signaling a broader strategic shift away from alliances with rule-of-law democracies. Under the new Donald Trump administrationthe United States will be friendlier to, and act more like, authoritarian governments such as Russia and China.
The first big impact will be in Ukraine. America is effectively switching sides, from helping Ukraine resist Russia’s attack to helping Russia gain concessions.
Hegseth declared that the United States not only refuses to be part of any force providing security guarantees to Ukraine in a war settlement, but also won’t come to the aid of a NATO member whose forces backstopping a settlement get attacked by Russia. At best, that is a bad negotiating strategy. Even if the U.S. did not provide security guarantees, the strategic ambiguity of potential U.S. support for a NATO ally that does would discourage violations of the peace, and create future leverage.
While Hegseth was dressing down NATO allies, Trump was conducting talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin about the future of Ukraine without including the Ukrainians or Europeans. That makes it less likely they’ll accept any agreement and means any deal the U.S. and Russia force on them will be less likely to last. Ukraine is already wary of taking Putin’s word, considering that Russia first attacked in 2014, failed to fully honor ceasefire agreements, then returned with a bigger attack in 2022.
But Trump and Hegseth forfeiting Ukraine’s bargaining position in advance — rather than showing a unified front, starting high and being willing to move down in exchange for concessions — is more than poor negotiating. When a reporter asked Trump if he views Ukraine “as an equal member of this peace process,” Trump responded“I think they have to make peace. That was not a good war to go into.”
In reality, Ukraine got into this war because Russia invaded it, demanding it give up independence. The only way for Ukraine to not go to war was bowing down to Putin and forfeiting freedom.
That’s apparently what Trump thinks Ukraine should have done at the start. Trump reacted to Russia’s February 2022 invasion with gushing praise, calling it “savvy” and “genius.” Three years of Ukraine’s NATO-backed resistance has not only thwarted Russia’s main goals and weakened Russia overall, it also calls into question Trump’s worldview that bullying readily yields gains.
Ukraine got into this war because Russia invaded it, demanding it give up independence. The only way for Ukraine not to go to war was bowing down to Putin and forfeiting freedom.
So now Trump’s position appears to be that Russia deserves something for its aggression. Asked if there’s any possible future where Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 borders, Trump could have taken a negotiators’ stance that everything would be worked out in talks. Or he could have gone for hard-hearted realist, saying that realities on the ground mean Ukraine will have to make some tough concessions if Russia does as well. Instead, he said it’s “unlikely,” explaining that Russia “took a lot of land and they fought for that land and they lost a lot of soldiers.”
The fact that Ukraine has lost a lot of soldiers fighting to keep its independence does not appear to be a relevant factor in the U.S. president’s calculus.
After his call with Putin, Trump said the Russian leader “wants peace.” That, too, is upside down.
Putin could get peace at any time by ordering Russian forces to leave Ukraine. Instead, he tells them to keep attacking, including with drones and missiles that deliberately target civilians. Putin wants peace only in the sense of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s quip that “the aggressor is always peace-loving … he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.”
Trump negotiating one on one with Putin as if Ukrainian territory were America’s to give away, and Hegseth telling Europe it’ll have to uphold any peace agreement on its own, puts the Western alliance on shaky ground. With America’s commitment uncertain, it’s weaker already and could cease to be effective.
NATO’s biggest benefit is deterrence. Risk of war with the entire alliance — including nuclear-armed France, Britain and America — kept the Soviet Union from attacking NATO territory, including impossible-to-defend West Berlin. This decade, deterrence has proven its value in Russia menacing and invading non-NATO neighbors while refraining from attacking any NATO country, even countries transferring weapons to Ukraine to fight Russians.
But deterrence depends on credibility, and NATO’s rests on a belief in European capitals and especially Moscow that attacking any NATO country, even the smallest, means war with the United States. The U.S. does a lot to make the treaty commitment credible — stationing troops in Europe, conducting joint exercises, consistent verbal assurances, etc. — and has gained a lot as a result.
NATO has prevented a third World War after the first two killed over 350,000 Americans in the European theater alone. And the only time the alliance has invoked its provision that “an attack on one is an attack on all” was to assist the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
At that point, the world’s most powerful alliance will be effectively dead, even if it persists on paper.
The Trump administration pulling back on U.S. commitments to European security means Russia will probably test the alliance in the coming years, with cyberattacks, assassinations, small incursions and eventually a land grab against a NATO member, such as Estonia. The menaced country will ask its treaty allies for help, and America won’t provide it. Making things worse, the U.S. president will probably take Putin’s side, at least rhetorically.
At that point, the world’s most powerful alliance will be effectively dead, even if it persists on paper. And it will cast doubt on America’s other treaty commitments, especially to allies facing threats from authoritarians whom Trump praises. Democratic U.S. allies and partners, such as South Korea and Taiwan, should be nervous and are probably already working on security strategies that, at minimum, hedge more against America.
The U.S.-led network of voluntary alliances among democracies has helped make America the world’s most powerful country and kept the international system more stable and less violent than the first half of the 20th century. Picking fights with longtime friends instead of working with them against shared adversaries is a recipe for American weakness and global instability, but it might make Donald Trump and his friends feel big and give them more opportunities for corruption. We all have our priorities.
Nicholas Grossman is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, editor of Arc Digital and the author of “Drones and Terrorism.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump used a primetime address to the nation Thursday to elevate his yearslong push to raise doubts about the legitimacy of U.S. elections and dispute his 2020 loss in an appeal for more restrictive voting laws ahead of the midterms.
Trump’s amplification of debunked theories about the election six years ago and his inability to accept his loss led to one of the darker moments in American history when a mob of his supporters led a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in the final days of his first term.
Now back in power, Trump opted to revisit the subject, despite persistent voter concerns about the cost of living, American forces escalating strikes on Iran in a conflict for which there is no end in sight, and an immigration crackdown facing bipartisan scrutiny for its sometimes deadly tactics.
His address Thursday hinged on contradictions.
A twice-elected president complained about his one personal defeat, alleged a cover-up by officials in his own first administration and surfaced claims about countries attempting to harm his own prospects while staying silent on steps taken by other nations to boost him.
Trump used the remarks to justify his push to pass a strict voter ID bill in Congress that has not advanced because it lacks enough support from Republicans.
“America is back and doing really well, but we still have a major challenge that must be urgently addressed, because no country can be great without fair and honest elections,” he said.
AP AUDIO: Trump is expected to make election conspiracies a focus of his national address
AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on President Trump’s speech tonight and what he is expected to say.
Trump doesn’t raise doubts about his election wins
Trump began Thursday night with a stark warning about what he described as flaws in the voting system and said he was releasing previously classified documents related to the 2020 and 2018 elections, when he lost the presidential election and his party suffered losses.
Trump’s speech presented allegations of interference and influence in ways that lacked key context, and did not produce evidence that votes had been manipulated or that the election outcome had been altered.
Notably, Trump focused on China but glossed over Russia, a country that intelligence officials have said favored Trump in 2016 and 2020 and engaged in wide-ranging influence campaigns aimed at boosting him over Democrat Joe Biden in the latter campaign.
Despite focusing on China in his speech, Trump did not criticize or issue a warning to Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he has long praised.
Election security experts say America’s decentralized voting system, with the power over elections residing with the states instead of the federal government, is a strength. Americans vote in more than 10,000 different jurisdictions with different rules, making the nations’ elections extraordinarily complicated but safe from widespread fraud.
No credible intelligence has emerged showing that the vote count in 2020 was manipulated by foreign actors. Repeated audits and reviews — manyrun by Republicansincluding Trump’s own then-attorney general — have found no significant fraud occurred in 2020.
Even if substantiated, Trump’s claims did not amount to conduct that would have altered the outcome of any race, let alone the 2020 race for the White House.
He also did not raise doubts about his election wins in 2016 or 2024.
As Trump spoke, the White House unveiled a website containing documents that were presented without context and included selectively released pieces of investigation files, intelligence analysis and correspondence.
Former intelligence official calls address ‘dangerous’
Sue Gordon, principal deputy director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term, called the president’s address “a dangerous speech about an incredibly important topic.” She said the intelligence community throughout Trump’s first term was alarmed about foreign interference in elections, but Trump scoffed at them, angered at the investigation of his campaign’s relationship with Russia.
“He had an entire term to deal with it and I don’t know how you can believe how the same community that told him about it, that was excoriated about it” wouldn’t warn him in 2020, Gordon said on BLN.
Conservative commentator John Solomon, who joined the White House staff last month and was seated in the East Room for Trump’s speech, later told MS NOW that “the intelligence community has zero evidence that someone has flipped – that a foreign power flipped — a vote in 2020, ‘22 or ’24.”
But, he added, “We’re not through all the documents.”
Trump urged the Justice Department to conduct investigations and prosecutions, though it was unclear from his speech what sort of criminal conduct — if any — could be identified, proven and charged.
In a contrast with his concerns about foreign interference in elections, Trump in his new budget proposes a $707 million cut in the U.S. Cybsersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, the group charged with protecting American election systems from overseas cyberattacks. Trump and other conservatives have been frustrated that the organization pushed back on election claims in 2020 and beyond.
Some networks did not air it live
In past presidencies, primetime addresses have typically been reserved for major milestones or nationally significant events.
Trump last spoke to the nation in April, giving an address on the Iran war a month after it started. He said then that the U.S. would accomplish its objectives “very shortly” and that “the hard part is done, so it should be easy.” The war, however, has dragged on and strikes between the U.S. and Iran have intensified this week.
Trump also delivered a politically charged primetime speech in December in which he sought to blame the challenging economic climate on Democrats.
ABC, NBC and BLN did not air Thursday’s remarks live but carried them in full on their streaming services.
CBS and MS NOW both cut away from Trump’s speech before he finished, while Fox News continued to carry his address.
Trump called out the media outlets for not carrying it live, accused them of being “part of a plot” and suggested their broadcast licenses be revoked.
Networks typically — but not always — carry presidential addresses to the nation live. In 2022, when Biden delivered a primetime address full of warnings about Trump and his adherents’ “extreme ideology,” the networks did not carry it live.
In 2014, the major networks chose to stick with their primetime programming instead of airing an address by President Barack Obama on his plans for immigration reform.
Democrats accuse Trump of seeking to discredit next election
Democrats warned that Trump was trying to revive false claims of past stolen elections in order to delegitimize the 2026 midterm elections, in which Trump’s Republican Party is facing headwinds.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia called Trump’s claims “totally bogus.”
“The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election,” Warner said in a statement on X. “A single concurring opinion suggested China may have tried to sway voters’ opinions … but that’s been public knowledge since 2021.”
Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the administration committee that handles federal voting issues and elections, said Trump is trying to sow confusion before the midterm elections.
“This is a pretext for the president, I think, calling into dispute the 2026 elections,” Morelle said on C-SPAN, adding that “we have secure elections.”
“I heard no concrete allegations that foreign actors actually changed the results of an American election,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said on BLN.
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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro and Will Weissert in Washington, Ali Swenson and Jocelyn Noveck in New York and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Mint has begun producing a new $1 coin bearing President Donald Trump’s face to help celebrate America’s 250th birthdaythe Treasury Department said Wednesday.
The final design for the commemorative coinbeing released in the fall, was approved earlier this year by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were appointed by Trump. But the finished product unveiled Wednesday differs from that version in a few aspects, including that it is not made of gold but rather has a gold finish.
The coin is intended “to honor the enduring legacy of liberty and a lasting symbol of patriotism,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X. “Featuring President Trump, it celebrates the strength of American values, and the promise of a nation dedicated to preserving freedom for all.”
The president on Wednesday told Fox Business Network that the move to put his face on a coin is “very unusual, but I was honored by it,” adding that “it’s very cute they gave me a coin.”
Trump, a Republican, has a penchant for putting his name and likeness in the historical record, following his renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleshipsamong other tributes. The move to put his face on the gold coin has drawn criticism in particular because federal law prohibits the depiction of a living president on U.S. currency, though the treasury secretary has the authority to authorize the minting and issuance of coins in some circumstances.
The front of the coin features an image of Trump in a suit and tie and with a stern look on his face. Lettering on the top half of the coin’s arc spells “LIBERTY,” with the dates 1776-2026 on the bottom half of the arc. The words “IN GOD WE TRUST” are in the middle.
The reverse side depicts the traditional image of the bald eagle in the Great Seal of the U.S., with “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” on the top half of the coin and the Latin phrase “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” meaning “Out of many, one,” on the shield emblazoned on the bird’s breast.
Among the other differences from the design approved earlier this year is that Trump doesn’t have his fists resting on top of what is supposed to be a desk as he leans forward. The Treasury Department did not specify Wednesday why the final product diverged from the originally approved design.
The Treasury Department announced in March that it would be putting Trump’s signature on all new U.S. paper currency.
Traditionally, U.S. paper currency carries the signatures of the treasury secretary and the treasurer, not the president.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
The president couldn’t be decent even for 24 hours. Less than a day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that it would pause most vehicle stopsDonald Trump posted on social media early Wednesday morning that “we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”
“The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch,” he wrote on Truth Social. Shortly after, Trump reversed the pause on traffic stops.
ICE operates this way because we as a country have allowed it to happen.
In truth, suspending the stops wouldn’t have brought back Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Guerrerothe two Latino fathers killed by ICE agents during separate stops in a span of a week. They are two more victims of an administration that has terrorized immigrant communities relentlessly. The real issue isn’t whether the traffic stops are now ending or continuing — it’s that ICE agents are never held accountable for killing people.
As I have written in the pastICE operates this way because we as a country have allowed it to happen. ICE is now the country’s largest-funded enforcement agency. Just last month Congress passed $70 billion more in funding. Nothing will change until ICE is abolished.
“They’re just trying to cover for the fact that what they are doing shouldn’t be allowable in the first place,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said of ICE’s announcement Tuesdaybefore Trump’s post about traffic stops. “And the fact that they’re pausing it is to distract from the fact that in many of these instances they shouldn’t be allowed to do it in the first place.”
AOC is right, and restoring the stops proves her point. There have been many instances. In March of last year, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez was killed by an ICE agent helping route traffic in South Padre Island. The Department of Homeland Security said Martinez tried to run over the agent, but the video didn’t support that claim.
In January, the nation mourned the deaths of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three shot in her SUV as she left a protest, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse killed during another protest. The federal government withheld the evidence in both cases — body camera footage, hard drives, even Good’s bullet-riddled SUV — from state investigators until this week. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he was “deeply troubled” that it took that long.
This is a pattern of manipulation: stripping away every detail of a human’s life until all that’s left is “illegal alien.”
“There have been at least 10 deaths involving encounters with immigration agents since Trump launched his deportation campaign,” The Associated Press reported. Nobody has been charged in a single one of those deaths. Guerrero’s also marks at least the 18th time in the past year that federal officers have fired at people in carsaccording to an MS NOW database. That’s on top of at least 22 people who have died in ICE custody this year alone, along with 33 last year.
The Trump administration claimed that Guerrero was a threat to “public safety” instead of a loving husband and parent to a 3-year-old daughter. It’s the same narrative this administration is trying with Salgado Araujo, who has been in this country for 35 years and raised three sons (who all earned college degrees). A week after his death, the FBI even said it was searching Salgado Araujo’s van for drugs. Never mind that, as the New York Times noted, there was “no prior suggestion that Mr. Salgado Araujo or the others in the van had been involved with drugs or had any relevant criminal history.”
This is a pattern of manipulation: stripping away every detail of a human’s life until all that’s left is “illegal alien,” because it’s easier to kill someone once you have already decided they were never fully a person to begin with. Dehumanizing immigrants is official government policy, and people are dying under it.
“Let’s be clear: it never was about documented or undocumented people — what we’re seeing is pure xenophobia and racism. Our community has been targeted and persecuted with zero accountability,” Voto Latino’s Beatriz Lopez saidcalling for the resignation of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
While the government is in the hands of the prejudiced, the most American things we can do are to reject government talking points when the video evidence says otherwise, and to uplift who the victims really were.
“He had a great vision for getting ahead, so many dreams to fulfill,” Guerrero’s father, Omar Durán, told The New York Times. “My son is a wonderful son — I don’t know why they did that to him.”
Masked agents should not get to decide whether Salgado Araujo and Guerrero get to live.
“He was a hard-working family man who never wanted his name to be known by anyone outside of his family. He wanted nothing else in life but to provide for his wife and see his sons become great people,” said Ronaldo Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s sonlast week at a press conference.
“He did not deserve to die,” Ronaldo added.
Masked agents should not get to decide whether Salgado Araujo and Guerrero get to live. Current ICE tactics have communities terrified. It’s part of why half of Americans support abolishing ICE. Immigration as continued militarized enforcement will only lead to more deaths. It may be hard even to visualize a country without ICE, but as Amy Gottlieb, U.S. migration director for the American Friends Service Committee, noted earlier this yearan ICE-less world can include “legal services, case management, social services, and other community-based support” that would help “navigate immigration processes while keeping families together — creating stability in our communities rather than chaos.”
Immigration policy through continued militarized enforcement will only lead to more deaths. What country do we want to be? One that values humanity, or one that wants to dehumanize people who believe in this country’s promise? This is the choice each American has to make. Are you for killing innocent people in broad daylight, or are you for decency and compassion? The America I believe in would choose the latter. So enough with the dehumanization, enough with the deaths, and no more ICE.
Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder of “The Latino Newsletter” and co-editor of “Pressing Issues from Free Press.”
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