Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has some sort of financial influence over former President Trump.

In an interview with MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Pelosi said Putin is the “richest person in the world” and has “stiff competition” to being named the most evil person in the world.

Pelosi asked “what does he have on Donald Trump that he’d have to constantly be catering to Putin?”

Her comments came just after Trump doubled down on his criticism of NATO and said he would encourage Russia to attack U.S. allies who fail to reach the alliance’s defense spending goals. Trump has also declined to criticize Putin for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison last week.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Jesus Christ, Democrats. Stop pussyfooting around with this shit. He’s a traitor. He’s a rapist. He wants to be a dictator. Putin controls him. Just come right out and say this shit.

    I’ve said this already once today. Just say these words: “If you vote for Trump, you’re voting for a rapist.” And say it repeatedly.

    They can’t even do that! Fucking baffling.

    • unalivejoy@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      “If you vote for Trump, you’re voting for a rapist.”

      This didn’t really work that first time.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        9 months ago

        Then nothing will work, but at least Dems can show some fucking spines instead of trying to compromise with traitors.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          But compromising with traitors is the best way to show progressives that traitors are better regarded by the party than they’ll ever be.

          • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            The one thing everyone in Washington can agree on - progressives are the scum of the earth.

            Ending the “campaign finance” gravy train, improving social safety nets to allow people to live a life free from fear and desperation, meaningful action to address climate change, fair wages…truly a capitalist’s nightmare.

        • Drusas@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          That’s the tactic the Democrats used in 2016 when they lost. It seemed like a slam dunk tactic to point out that anyone voting for Trump was voting for someone who commits sexual assault against women, but his voters ate it up.

          • snooggums@midwest.social
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            9 months ago

            Who fucking cares about his voters? The point is to motivate everyone else to vote and maybe catch undecided voters by showing a spine.

            It didn’t work in 2020 because Hilary’s campaign focused on safe states instead of battleground states. The same thing worked in 2020 because Biden campaigned better. Both won the popular vote, but one didn’t motivate where it mattered.

            • suction@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I agree a hundred percent but whoever is still not motivated to vote against Trump probably secretly roots for him.

    • gloss@discuss.tchncs.de
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      9 months ago

      A tape was released where he boasted about committing sexual assault. He bragged about grabbing them by the pussy. That tape came out like a month or two before the 2016 election. An October surprise that would have sunk any other candidate in the history of the USA. His fans did not care at all. Most of them probably cheered him on.

      Rape? This is the party who think it’s impossible to rape your own wife. Rape doesn’t even exist to them.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        An October surprise that would have sunk any other candidate in the history of the USA.

        It only sinks your campaign if your voter base disapproves of the behavior. Trump won a majority of white women voters. An outright majority. Think about that.

        Our country is so fucking misogynist that white women will hear “real estate cretin grabs actress by her crouch just because he can” and reply “as is his right” as though he’s a fucking 13th century aristocrat claiming prima nocta.

        This is the real primal power of a fascist campaign. You’re not bound by the rules. You are, in fact, rewarded for breaking them. And the more rules you can break without anyone stopping you, the more popular appeal you possess.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Rape doesn’t exist to MAGA people. They will vote for Trump anyway. They are not who they should be trying to reach.

        Do you think that it shouldn’t be brought up?

      • kautau@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        And trump just sold nearly half a million dollars in cheap chinese shoes in half a day. Idiots are idiots. And the “representative” of the LLC that was just formed a month ago to sell these shoes is Andrew Pierce, of Cloud Peak Law (which seems to be distancing themselves from that name really quickly lol) https://wyomingllcattorney.com/About.

        They are a tax evasion firm. https://www.offshorealert.com/wyoming-asset-protection-law-firm-cloud-peak-seeks-to-quash-irs-summons-for-danish-tax-investigation/

        Trump may be an idiot. Or he may be somebody pretending to be an idiot. But his team isn’t. They are excellent at convincing idiots that they are smart by supporting him.

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          I can almost guarantee you that he didn’t actually sell that many. The whole grift is to sell like 100 pairs, but say you sold 1000, and then put another 100 on eBay for 3x the price to cash in on the fomo

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          And trump just sold nearly half a million dollars in cheap chinese shoes in half a day.

          Selling cheap imported designer goods to rubs is half the fashion industry playbook. $400 for a pair of shiny high tops is honestly a steal. Some of these sneakers go for a full four figures. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Trump Shoes get resold at some rally for north of a grand.

          Trump may be an idiot.

          The argument that Trump is an idiot keeps running counter to the comic inability for American civil authorities to meaningfully censure or deter him from doing obvious frauds, scams, and crimes. If he looks stupid, it may only be due to the fact that the whole system is fucking stupid and he’s just the clown at the front of the parade.

    • danc4498@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Keep in mind the Trump v Biden election cycle hasn’t even started. September/October are going to be spicy.

    • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I think you want war. When they are thinking long term. We all know it. But lowering themselves to his level allows A LOT more mud slinging. Which is bad enough. It’s distracting enough to give the citizens nothing. And that’s what it should be about.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Because the short term is really fucking dire. And they want war. Taking the high road and not giving to them is not going to work.

        • mriguy@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          They are currently fighting the war. And winning it, because we keep pretending they aren’t. When they go low and we go high, they get what they want and fascism gets further up the beach.

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      I think they are legitimately fearful that going too hard will provoke violence.

      Or rather, if you believe that these people can be deprogrammed at some point… eventually… and again become functional members of society, then you need to leave some path back.

      Or rather, most people are still afraid of confronting the reality where these people actually have no path back from this collective edgy post-truth fascist-life-crisis.

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They can’t because both parties are both rapists. And they love each other.

      “Jeffrey Epstein” ring a bell?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Ah yes, both parties are the same. Because Obama or Biden would totally have nominated SCOTUS judges that would have ended Roe v. Wade or threatened Chevron or decide that a man who committed treason can run for president.

        • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You mean the Obama that literally owned the courts and intentionally didn’t codify Roe v Wade? Even though people were screaming at him to do it?

          But he didn’t cause it’s a nice election carrot. 🥕

          Vote for the libs! Abortion rights!

          Don’t vote for a real progressive or you will all die next election!

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Just say these words: “If you vote for Trump, you’re voting for a rapist.”

      And Republicans will retort “If you vote for Biden, you’re voting for a baby murderer.”

      It won’t change a single vote.

      If Trump is a rapist, he should be criminally prosecuted for rape. He’s already lost multiple civil lawsuits on the subject. This should be practically trivial to accomplish.

      But Democrats have been pussyfooting around an actual criminal prosecution for the last four years. They seem entirely disinclined to put their money where their mouths are and LOCK HIM UP. Instead, its just folks shouting “You’re a criminal!” from one pulpit while their peers on the GOP side retort “No, you!”

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Except that “baby murderer” is what cause Republicans to do so badly a couple of years ago. Abortion has been a big loss for them.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Republicans still hold a majority of state governors’ mansions and a plurality of legislatures.

          Democrats wish they could perform as badly.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Laughing up my sleeve in '94, '02, '10, and '16, asking the same thing. Can Donald Trump defeat an unpopular incumbent party in the wake of a mediocre economic recovery while everyone is fixated on Black Crime, Illegal Immigration, and Evil China? Who can say?

              But the Senate map alone promises Republicans three viable pickups in Trump-friendly Arizona, Montana, and Ohio, while the Democrats’ best shot is still Texas.

              • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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                9 months ago

                Mediocre? Biden inherited an actual trainwreck. In terms of purely technocratic policy, the recovery will be talked about for decades as a textbook template for both crisis management and economic planning. Nothing like that has ever happened in the modern era.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  Biden inherited an actual trainwreck.

                  Its funny you should use the term trainwreck, given one of Biden’s early acts as President was to sign a bill authored by Democrat lawmakers to forbid the US Railway Workers from striking. Consequently, we’ve had a wave of train derailments and rail infrastructure failures.

                  Nothing like that has ever happened in the modern era.

                  The '08 Recession was far worse. And a great deal of the modern trainwreck stems from failures under the Obama administration to stabilize the housing market, rein in catastrophic speculative bubbles in the finance sector, and PASS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

                  All objectives Biden fumbled (or deliberately undermined) as VP back when Democrats enjoyed a 60 vote Senate majority. Is there any surprise that he’s once again unable or unwilling to address corporate mismanagement in his current role as chief executive?

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        9 months ago

        The problem with the criminal prosecution for rape is that he’s LONG past the statute of limitations on that.

        The only reason E. Jean Carroll was able to go after him at all is because he won’t shut up about it. The defamation is current and actionable, the rape is from 30 years ago.

        That ship sailed before Y2K.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          the rape is from 30 years ago

          Trump had sexual assault allegations pending against him since the mid-90s. Twenty five recorded incidents in total, from New York ballrooms to the Mar-a-Lago bedroom of his daughter Ivanka.

          To date, he’s never been criminally prosecuted. The only claims against him have been civil. No DA has taken a case, much less carried it to trial.

          That ship sailed before Y2K.

          Allegations against Trump are as recent as 2016, assuming you discount White House staff allegations which run up to 2019.

          DAs simply won’t touch him.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      He’s a traitor. He’s a rapist. He wants to be a dictator.

      That is indeed true they are also corrupted and have the blood of thousands on his hands, but to believe that Putin controls the ceo of USA means that you have no clue how the state works. USA spend trillions on war yearly, many billions alone on propaganda, psyop and all sort of political and technological warfare. They spend hundreds of thousand on bulletproof clothes for the ceo and drives him around in military convoys a mile long. To believe a country that is 6 to 7 times weaker than USA has any control over his ceo it’s just naive and feeding on propaganda.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        And yet he has total fealty to Putin. He praises Putin. He gives Putin his blessing to run roughshod over Europe. When he was president, he met with Putin and made the entire thing totally off the record so we have no idea what they said to each other.

        I’m not sure what the U.S. spends has anything to do with what kompromat a former KGB agent might have on someone he wants in his sphere of influence.

        • index@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          And yet he has total fealty to Putin.

          There are worst dictators than Putin such as saudi arabia kings who are well respected and supported by USA ceo and formers ceos, this does not mean these dictators have any jurisdiction over USA

          He praises Putin

          So does Netanyahu who you can see in plenty of pictures hugging with current USA ceo and other world leaders

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu#Relations_with_foreign_leaders

          "In his 2022 book, Netanyahu wrote positively about Putin and describes him as “smart, sophisticated and focused on one goal – returning Russia to its historical greatness”

          He gives Putin his blessing to run roughshod over Europe.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_military_installations

          When he was president, he met with Putin and made the entire thing totally off the record so we have no idea what they said to each other.

          Governments do classified meeting they don’t tell the public about daily.

          I’m not sure what the U.S. spends has anything to do with what kompromat a former KGB agent might have on someone he wants in his sphere of influence.

          Lean how modern warfare works, they don’t spend trillions on bullets

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Your argument seems to be “other people do it too, therefore he doesn’t have fealty to Putin.”

            Which is not a very convincing argument.

            • index@sh.itjust.works
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              9 months ago

              That’s to give you a picture of how politics work, you can search for any politician you like and there will be pictures of them shaking hands with mafiosi or dictators. Politicians loyalty it toward these who give them money and power.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                And yet that still doesn’t mean that Trump is being used by Putin through kompramat.

                Your entire “this isn’t happening with Trump” argument hinges on “this other thing is happening with different people.” Which is not how it works.

                • index@sh.itjust.works
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                  9 months ago

                  To believe that trump is a russian puppet is a really poor attempt at blaming USA problems at someone else. If you are outraged that trump has ties with the russian mafia you then should be outraged at the whole government for having the same ties and being totally rigged.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    9 months ago

                    I never said anything about being outraged. I said you have not supported your claim sufficiently. “A is not A because B is B” is not a logical argument.