F**king Mondays: Biden's Delicate Diplomacy, Haley's Gamble, and Tucker In Moscow

Why is Tucker Carlson in Moscow?

Tucker Carlson spotted in Moscow. Image via Twitter

And we’re back! Welcome to another installment of “F**king Mondays!” In the round up today:

Biden vs Trump diplomacy

Given the extraordinary flare up of violence in the Middle East, steady leadership and smart diplomacy are the only ways to calm tensions and work towards a long term peace. If you want to see how the Biden administration is handling the multiple crises in the region, just parse the language coming out of the State Department. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia today as fighting continues between U.S. forces and Iranian proxy militia groups and relayed a message of de-escalation (via the Washington Post):

“The United States does not want to see the conflict escalated” and “will not escalate the conflict,” a senior State Department official told reporters on Blinken’s plane en route to the Saudi capital.

Blinken’s team says the launching of dozens of U.S. strikes on militia targets Friday was a proportional response to the Jan. 28 killing of three U.S. service members in Jordan. And even as the White House has vowed further retaliation in the coming days, “we do not see it as an escalation,” the official said.

“It is the response that we said would happen if American soldiers were killed, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic….

The United States has declined to strike targets inside Iran despite calls to do so by several Republicans in Congress. Such a move would probably prompt even bolder attacks on U.S. personnel in the region.

Let’s imagine for a moment that Donald Trump was president during this crisis. How would Trump’s famous “deal making” go when negotiating with Egypt, Qatar and Israel? If his past track record of dealing with the Middle East is anything to go by, we’d almost certainly be in World War III by now. Trump botched almost every international negotiation his administration took part in, notably almost kicking off a nuclear war with North Korea. As Bob Cesca wrote back in 2021:

Shortly after the 2016 election, Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat-reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, called Trump’s nuclear talk “a very concerning and destabilizing symbol for the rest of the world.” 

And then there was the “fire and fury” affair, in mid-2017, during which Trump repeatedly threatened North Korea with a nuclear attack. It was the closest we’d come to a nuclear war since the 1980s, and it was entirely based on Trump’s unquenchable thirst for chaos and his obsession with expanding his power.

Trump, you might remember, also oversaw the movement of the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 — a widely condemned provocation that led to widespread violence and deaths in Gaza.

While many on the left are demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, the reality is that America cannot wave a magic wand and stop the fighting. Instead, they have to respond carefully to attacks ensuring they do not escalate unnecessarily, support Israel publicly while forcing change mostly behind the scenes. This appears to be working, and an extended truce is likely to happen in the coming weeks.

It impossible to overstate the threat a Trump presidency poses to global stability, particularly given the ongoing violence in the Middle East and Ukraine. We need statesmanship, not bullshit, and the Biden administration is providing plenty of it.

Nikki Haley bringing in big cash

This is not good news for Donald Trump (via the NYTimes):

Officials with Nikki Haley’s campaign said Monday that she had raised $16.5 million in January, her biggest monthly fund-raising total to date, adding a new infusion of cash to the $14.6 million her campaign brought into the new year to keep the nomination fight with Donald J. Trump going.

Haley can’t actually beat Trump, but she can continue to hurt him before he gets to the general. This is of course why incumbents have such a big advantage in presidential contests — they enter fresh without months of intra party fighting. Another reason why Republicans continue to funnel money into Haley’s campaign even though she has lost every primary thus far is that they know Trump has other problems to contend with. If Trump is convicted in one of the many criminal cases he faces this year, his support will be severely dented, perhaps to the point where the GOP abandons him entirely. This is unlikely of course, but they need a back up if the worst happens. Either way, this is good news for President Biden, who can sit back and watch Haley take chunks out of his opponent for free.

Surprise! Tucker Carlson is in Moscow

After getting fired from Fox News for his role in spreading false election claims, Tucker Carlson moved to Twitter where he could disseminate far right propaganda without any fear of oversight. An unleashed Carlson is now spending his days interviewing alleged rapists, internet trolls named “Catturd,” and antisemitic rappers.

Why does Carlson do this? One theory is that he is a brave truth teller willing to risk his reputation to expose nefarious Deep State plots to force everyone to eat insects. The other, more likely theory, is that he is an immensely greedy performance artist who has hit on a wildly successful formula for generating cash. Carlson didn’t hit on this formula by himself of course — he has taken his cues from Russian internet trolls who successfully sabotaged the 2016 election by inflaming America’s culture wars to the point of no return. By relentlessly trolling liberals and establishment types, an entirely new political movement that exists in an entirely separate reality was created. This movement thrives online and is fed by algorithms and malevolent actors like Tucker Carlson who work furiously to maximize conflict.

Carlson will almost certainly go down as the most successful troll in history, having morphed his Fox News show into an even crazier online version that exist only to create more chaos. Carlson is now so inebriated with his success he is taking it to entirely new levels (via the Guardian):

The Kremlin has declined to say whether Vladimir Putin would grant an interview to Tucker Carlson, the far-right American journalist, after the former Fox News presenter was spotted in Moscow.

“We can hardly be expected to provide information on the movement of foreign journalists,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said when asked about speculation that Carlson was in Russia to interview the Russian president.

“Many foreign journalists come to Russia every day, many continue to work here, and we welcome this,” Peskov said. “We have nothing to announce in terms of the president’s interviews to foreign media.”

The Mash Telegram channel published a picture on Saturday of Carlson at the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow attending the Spartacus ballet, creating rumours of an interview with Putin.

Carlson, 54, who reportedly arrived in Moscow last Thursday, has since been photographed in one of the city’s most luxurious hotels.

Why is Carlson in Moscow about to interview Vladimir Putin? Hint: it’s not because he desperately cares about stopping a potential nuclear conflict between Russia and the West. It’s because he admires Putin’s fascism and knows how much it will irritate “elites” in the West. This is a big chance for Carlson to up his profile at the expense of America’s attempts to prevent the collapse of the post WWII global order. In short, Carlson wants chaos, because the more there is, the more he profits.

See you next week!

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