The President of the United States has announced, with obvious pride, that he phoned Vladimir Putin and asked him for fuel. He calls it a great success. It is the richest country on earth going cap in hand to the man who bombs Ukrainian cities every night, because diesel became expensive before an election. For four years Europe paid more for its energy, housed millions of refugees and emptied its arsenals so that Putin would not be rewarded. Washington has now concluded that all of it matters less than a cheaper tank for a truck in Ohio, and has told Ukraine to stop hitting the refineries that pay for the war. This used to be the country others measured themselves against. Its remaining admirers are in Moscow and Pyongyang, and it has become exactly the kind of shithole it used to sneer at.

Claude Malhuret Was Right about Trump. On Friday, at Trump's direction, the US Treasury issued a license waving Russian diesel back onto the world market, days after Russia killed dozens of Ukrainians, many of them children. It seems a good moment to revisit the speech in which a French senator told us exactly who these people were. Claude Malhuret took the floor of the Luxembourg Palace and delivered what may be the most surgical dismantling of the Trump administration ever spoken in a legislative chamber. There were no diplomatic niceties, only a point-by-point indictment from an ally who had clearly had enough. "A year ago, here in France, I compared Trump's presidency to Nero's Court. I was wrong. It's the Court of Miracles. An anti-vaxxer, former heroin addict as Minister of Health," he began, meaning RFK Jr. Then came the rest of the cabinet: "A climate-skeptic Minister of Economy. An alcoholic TV host, Minister of the Armed Forces. An old Qatar agent, Minister of Justice. A groupie of Putin, Minister of National Security." That would be Scott Bessent, Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi and Tulsi Gabbard. "A Turkish proverb says: when a clown settles in a palace, he does not become king, it is the palace that becomes a circus." The circus has been busy. Trump came off a phone call with Putin and announced on Truth Social that Russia would send millions of tons of diesel to the world market, promising in capital letters that prices "will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!" Bessent's Treasury promptly made it legal, barely a month after Trump signed a sweeping Russia sanctions law, as NPR points out. The motive is not hard to find. Diesel prices in America have doubled since the war with Iran began in February and the midterms are weeks away, so the man who set the fuel market on fire is now buying the extinguisher from Vladimir Putin and sending the bill to Ukraine. According to Axios, Kyiv was blindsided while Witkoff and Kushner were sitting with Ukrainian officials to discuss ending the war, and an analyst told the outlet the volumes are too small to fix the shortage anyway. So Putin gets revenue and respectability, Americans may or may not get cheaper diesel, and Ukrainians get more missiles. Zelensky called it weakness from partners who are supposed to be strong, which is the polite version. Malhuret gave us the impolite one long ago, and he has been proved right down to the last clown. Watch the speech and share it loudly. Stay connected,
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