The Biggest Lie: Trump, Vance, Rubio and the Claim that Russia Did Not Invade Ukraine

Donald Trump has always been a liar beginning with his earliest days in Manhattan’s real estate markets. He constantly claimed fame as a great businessman, but his claims were fraudulent. His greed, his constant defrauding of investors and contractors, serial bankruptcies, and numerous business failures, all of which were well known and quite public was swept when NBC made Trump the star of the reality show The Apprentice. It was a scam, creating the image of a successful billionaire, a myth that Trump used to catapult himself into the Republican presidential campaign.

After that Trump ran roughshod over his Republican opponents, many of whom repeatedly condemning his lack of character, criminality, and unfitness for office, including his Vice President, J.D. Vance who compared him to Hitler. Lindsey Graham said he was a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot unfit for office, many others said similar things, then fell into line, one after another. Now, a decade after his rise began no matter what crime Trump commits, no matter how badly he shreds the Constitution, blows away the separation of powers and sides with an enemy that at one time most of them opposed, it doesn’t matter. Their loyalty to Trump is their dishonor, something that they seem proud of flaunting

The lies of Trump while in his first term and only grew after his two impeachment trials, and multiple felony criminal indictments and during his 2024 campaign. He wasn’t responsible for any crimes, he was the victim of an unfair justice system that was weaponized to get him. We thought the “big lie” was about his claims that the 2020 election was stolen and led to the violent insurrection to overturn that he instigated on 6 January 2021, were the big lie, but we were wrong.

His biggest lie went back to his first term when he fought back against any claims that Russia had interfered on his behalf, defended Vladimir Putin and slandered Volodymyr Zelenskyy the President of Ukraine. That lie continues today as Trump accused Ukraine and Zelenskyy of provoking Russia’s 2022 invasion. To see Rubio and Graham praise him for embarrassing the United States, and Trump along with Vance engage in their public thuggery against Zelenskyy when he stated the facts about Russia and Putin, redounded to their and our enduring shame.

There are not alternative facts as Trump’s aides claimed in his first term. There are facts, opinions and lies. Elvis is dead. The earth is round. The Holocaust happened. The cause of the American Civil War was slavery. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 and broke over 200 cease fire agreements in between.

Deborah Lipstadt said “When someone makes an outrageous claim, even though they may hold one of the highest offices in the land, if not the world — we must say to them, “Where’s the proof? Where’s the evidence?” We must hold their feet to the fire. We must not treat it as if their lies are the same as the facts.”

Destroyed Ukrainian cities, Bucha (above) and Mariupol (below)

Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia has launched thousands of missiles and rockets against Ukrainian cities and population centers. They destroyed cities, massacred civilian populations, kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children. They purposely damaged nuclear power plants and committed hundreds of documented war crimes, including massacring prisoners of war, committed mass rapes of Ukrainian women. Ukraine fights against the odds inflicted nearly a million casualties on the Russian army and destroyed thousands of Russian tanks and armored vehicles. Ukraine has only tried to defend herself against brutal Russia aggression. Now Trump is openly siding with the Russians and after failing to extort Ukraine’s natural resources has abandoned her and dishonoring our country. Those are facts, and they are verified. They are not opinions. Anything else said by Trump, Vance, Rubio, Graham, or in the MAGA media is a lie.

Unfortunately, too many Americans in the media and Republican politicians and office holders have not held Trump’s feet to the fire, and the MAGA cult has fallen in line to defend those lies, of which the lies about Russia are the greatest. But I and many others will continue to speak the truth, call out Trump’s lies and defend the Constitution and the ideas that our nation was founded upon, even if the world conspires against us.

I am sorry, I want to say more, but I’m tired and it is late. Until next time, stay safe and watch your six.