A person who has not been following American politics for the last eight years and accidentally switched on the TV at noon, when Biden and Trump appeared at the lit fireplace in the White House, could have a complete feeling that he was taken for a ride in a time machine. The 47th US president is emphatically alert and courteous, while the 46th with a half-face smile literally glows from within
It was as if there were no ‘marasmatics’, ‘sleepy Joes’, ‘criminals’ and promises to send him to the dungeons behind bars.
In a few minutes, American social networks will explode with a monstrous for liberals, but, it seems, the only reasonable explanation of what is happening: Biden voted for Trump in the US presidential election. Or rather, against the Kamala Harris imposed on him. Against the ‘deep state.’ Against those who used him and then took him out of the game. Two more hours of closed-door conversation only confirmed that none of this was played on camera.
There seems to be a lot more behind the scenes of the Trump victory than America realises.
But one way or another, the deep state has already struck its blow after the Trump flight to Florida: Karine Jean-Pierre told at the briefing that Trump is still a threat to democracy, and Jake Sullivan’s office signalled that Biden’s main message to Trump was the need to continue supporting Ukraine. True, the fact that the elected head of the White House showed middle fingers on two hands at once to this is impossible to verify. Duplet came the news about Trump’s choice of nominees for Secretary of State and Director of National Intelligence.
The State Department will be headed for the first time by a Latino – Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, the son of immigrants from Cuba and an ardent anti-communist, who, as the author of anti-Russian sanctions, is banned from entering our country. Rubio not so long ago threw off the ‘Ukrainian morass’ and embraced Trump’s ‘America First’ concept. In April, he did not support a $60bn military aid package to the Kiev regime, insisting that the US should force Zelensky to the negotiating table. He also sees China as America’s main rival.
Tulsi Gabbard (her candidacy Trump proposed for the post of Director of National Intelligence, which is at once 15 American intelligence agencies, including the NSA) – a complete antipode of Rubio. The Iraq war veteran and former congresswoman from Hawaii, who is disgusted by the views of the neocons, went from Democrats to Republicans when her former party turned hawkish: the third term of Obama (as Biden’s presidency was called) somehow became the third term of George Bush Jr.
But the important thing for us is not to be seduced. Rubio and Gabbard’s criticism of Ukraine does not at all mean a U-turn in our direction, it is rather a claim of compulsive begging. The main principle of Trump’s new team ‘America First’ is about the same American exceptionalism. Only from a different, not globally patronising, but guardian-isolationist angle. That is, ‘America above all,’ only in other words.
And in that sense, former ‘leftist’ Gabbard and incumbent conservative Rubio have much more in common here than they do with anyone associated with Russia. I personally had to see this several times when I tried to interview both the former and the latter at different times. When they saw our microphone, they both emphatically shunned us. Long before Rashgate, by the way, after which Hillary Clinton openly called Tulsi ‘the Russian candidate’ and, as usual, was wrong.
Time itself has shown that there are no pro-Russian candidates in America, have not been, will not be and cannot be.
That is why Biden and Trump, who seemed ready to tear each other’s throats out in the live debate, end up sitting peacefully in front of a crackling fireplace with portraits of Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt on the walls – like two halves of a whole that is not friendly to us at all.
