Timothy Snyder, leading historian of authoritarianism, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe: “The most obvious winner, of course, is Vladimir Putin and Russia. The Russians started a war that they couldn’t win without American assistance. And then, for the last year or so, they made it very plain that their game plan was to keep the war going in the hope and expectation that Donald Trump would return to power. And now that Trump is in power, he’s conceded on behalf of the Ukranians, so to speak, pretty much every major issue — territory, NATO, Russia’s legitimacy in the international system, trade with Russia. [Trump has] conceded all of these things without asking for any concession from Russia, and meanwhile has pressured Ukranians to take a much worse deal.”
From Thomas Edsall‘s 5.20 N.Y. Times essay:
“J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, succinctly described his own view of the Trump presidency, writing by email that there has never ‘been a U.S. president who I consider even to have been destructive, let alone a president who has intentionally and deliberately set out to destroy literally every institution in America, up to and including American democracy and the rule of law. I even believe he is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate.'”