Zelenskyy’s visit to Pennsylvania weapons factory upsets speaker as Trump continues attacks on Ukrainian president

The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, has demanded that Ukraine fire its ambassador to Washington as the feud between Donald Trump and Volodymr Zelenskyy escalated and Republicans accused the Ukrainian leader of election interference.

In a public letter, Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador, Oksana Markarova, over a visit to a munitions factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania, last week where the Ukrainian president thanked workers for providing desperately needed shells to his outgunned forces.

Johnson complained that Markarova had organised the visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant as a “partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats”. The event was attended by the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who has campaigned in support of Kamala Harris.

  • Erasmus@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Being a kid of the 80s and living on the tail end of the Cold War this is just so weird.

    The Republicans then, under Reagan, really viewed the Russians with disdain. We were constantly told - both by them, school, and the media, how Russia and Communism was the greatest evil on this planet.

    Now all I see every time I turn on the news is some shadow of a Republican, gargling the balls of a Russian leader or representative.

    It’s WEIRD I tell you, it’s like that movie The Manchurian Candidate is playing out only they’ve replaced the whole party.

    • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I remember Republicans warning in the 80s that the Russians would attack America from within. Made sense, the way the KGB operated.

    • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Republicans now see how much money the leaders of modern Russian are siphoning out of the countries coffers, and realise they can do that too in the US.

    • mineralfellow@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The documentary “The Family” offers the explanation that Russia has a strong traditional family values contingent that appeals to the right-wing idealogy.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        And here I was thinking the source of their appeal was all the political corruption and fascistic tendencies

      • takeda@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        this guy and family values???

        In 20s we had Jews, now this position was taken by gays and trans. Fascists always need an enemy to rile up others.

  • Jay@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    no Republicans were invited

    So? Why would they invite the assholes trying to sabotage everything? Putin wasn’t invited either.

      • zigmus64@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I do enjoy every opportunity I get where my brain gets to say the words quod erat demonstrandum.

    • Granbo's Holy Hotrod@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      They act like babies and then clutch their pearls when not allowed at the adukt table. Same people who rail against benefits but go back to their states and take credit for any improvements. Gross people all around.

      • takeda@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I first didn’t think much of it, but now I am realizing that this visit shows how Republicans lie that Biden is just dropping pallets off dollar bills into Ukraine, when in reality majority of it actually stays within US, creating jobs, and apart from artillery shells majority of production is to replenish US stocks, because we are giving Ukraine equipment that was close to expire.

        This lie being exposed is the real reason why Mike is upset.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Also the Democrats who were there are currently in office one being the Governor. It’s his job to meet with diplomats sometimes and do that kind of stuff so wtf.

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Trump-Zelenskyy feud

    Which is synonymous with Putin-Zelenskyy feud. I don’t think anyone is surprised that Putin’s bitch is doing Putin’s biding.

  • kn0wmad1c@programming.dev
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    2 months ago

    Okay, I might be oversimplifying a bit here, but is the speaker of the house escalating global tensions simply because he wasn’t invited to a party?

    • modifier@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I highly doubt it because he’s got to he accustomed to that this late in his sad life.

  • WatDabney@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Amongst all of the Republican insanity of recent years, the thing that definitely stands out to me the most, as the weirdest, is their slavish subservience to Putin.

    I understand it from an extremely cynical point of view, but still, it’s just so weird snd so directly contrary to everything they’ve ever claimed to stand for. It’s hypocrisy and malfeasance and amorality and pathetic subservience all rolled into one and cranked up to 11.

  • KaRunChiy@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Jesus christ everything is election interference for them. Jesus himself could came back and praise Bill Clinton and they’d claim that’s election interference

  • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Not everything is about our fucking election. One side wants to continue funding Ukraine and the other side wants Russia to win wants to stop funding. What does that have to do with the election? Where was this talk when Trump, not even an elected official, had Viktor Orbán over?

  • SelfProgrammed@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Watching our senators and congresspersons in how they respond to Ukraine and simultaneously how they respond to Israel is absolutely sickening. We’re not Russia but it seems like our representatives want us to be just as authoritarian, just as ruthless, just as disconnected from reality. I know it’s not the whole of the house, but the bad apples are the loudest.

  • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    I don’t get how people honestly think Trump is Putin’s bitch. Trump is a malignant narcissist and impossible to be “handled”. He’ll throw anyone and everyone under the buss and had no problem escalating with Russia. The thing is that Trump like his base simply don’t give a shit about any Slavic people, even if they’re married to one. The republicans are simply not susceptible to the “justice and democracy” nonsense the liberals are selling. So Trump does whatever serves Trump and he had no problem arming the worse of the far right elements in Ukraine:

    From this

    Manafort duly resigned, and the RussiaGate racket erupted–a connivance that went some way to ensuring the “pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy” wasn’t compromised one iota.

    Indeed, Trump’s term in office was typified by ever-escalating hostility between Washington and Moscow, the Oval Office resident going to dangerous lengths his predecessor had consistently refrained from to arm and galvanize the most reactionary and violent elements of the Ukrainian armed forces, including the notorious Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, and tear up Cold War arms control treaties, much to Moscow’s chagrin.