Is It Time To Repeal The 19th Amendment?

American Thinker 

We need to have a serious chat. Lately, I have had several conversations with people about repealing the 19th Amendment, and I’ve seen websites making the same argument. As appealing as that may be, it’s not enough, and it’s the wrong way to go. Like the SAVE America Act, it’s trying to fix something that needs a total conceptual rethink.

We should be talking about who should be allowed to vote, or perhaps who should be required to vote.

At the beginning of virtually every historical democratic process, there were qualifications for voting: land ownership, nobility/class, taxpayer status, gender, race, religion, competence (although these tended to be designed to exclude on racial grounds), and, of course, age—all reflecting the assumptions of their times, cultures, or geography. Since then, we’ve simplified “citizenship” rules—indeed, we’ve simplified them to the point at which even the citizenship “requirement” is an honor system fraught with fraud.

In light of election trends, perhaps it is worth applying some of those earlier basic assessment processes to the people who may or may not, or perhaps should not, constitute the voting public today. And while most of those historic categories and divisions are rightfully no longer part of the conversation, some may deserve review and resurrection.

I’ll start with age. It can be argued that age should be a factor in qualifying to vote, not by lowering it further and further until ballot papers are in crayon, but by reinstating previous benchmarks for access to voting. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the voting age should return to 21, or even 25. Maybe people should have to earn the right to vote through some life experience rather than going immediately to the ballot armed only with what the teachers’ unions have taught them.

How about ownership of property? The old property requirement is probably a tad draconian, particularly in the current climate, with homeownership becoming increasingly difficult.

But perhaps there should be another indicator that you are a committed member of society by having skin in the game. This would be a matrix including property, assets, volunteer work, or national service, such as firefighting, paramedic work, the military, the Coast Guard, or police. Politicians and public bureaucrats need not apply, or do I have to explain the term “asset”?

And, of course, there is the growing talk of repealing the 19th Amendment—getting rid of the mad, blue-haired females who are distinguished by being irrational, emotional, and often psychotic.

I’m not necessarily suggesting a psychiatric evaluation. But maybe there could be something less “medical”—how about a drug test? You can’t drive while intoxicated, but you can vote for Hillary ... Come to think of it, that does sound like a medical issue.

Possibly cut it down to a simple qualification test. A few very basic questions at the top of the ballot:

1.    How many stars are on the current U.S. flag?

2.    How many stripes are on the current U.S. flag?

3.    Name the three branches of government.

I digress. Back to the 19th Amendment.

Repealing it would not seem quite such a backward step, or quite so appalling, if we had a system that did not distinguish between male and female. The point is not so much to stop females from voting but to stop mad or “unqualified” people from voting—of either sex, if the binary “either” is still acceptable these days.

The problem seems to be people who cannot make rational decisions in the nation's best interests without letting a single issue, or extraneous influences (or influencers), cloud their minds. Real personal decisions are needed.

Any comment in the public square along the lines of “when men were in charge, things were better” will immediately be lambasted. Still, that politically incorrect thought can be defended in various ways across millennia, but let’s not. After all, women have been great leaders—Maggie, Indira, and Golda spring to mind—and masses of men have screwed up everything they touched.

So, this is not really about men versus women. It is about the qualification to think. The 19th Amendment would not have been needed if the original 18th-century constitutional voting rights had been about a democratic decision arrived at without fear or favor, without media, cultural biases, and lobbying influences, with rational minds all having America’s survival and prosperity at the fore.

What is needed, then, is a conversation about qualifications to vote. I’m not talking about IQ tests or pieces of paper from universities saying you are clever. It is more about skin in the game, positive contributions to society, and some proven record of national or community pride.

When it comes down to it, whether a voter is male or female may not be important, and age may not be decisive either. The qualification would have to be broader than both of those criteria.

Even being born in the country may not be enough, particularly with a politicized or cowardly judiciary making decisions under the same influences as the weaker members of the public. These are decisions that the general voting public finds hard to justify.

Do we eventually get to only third-generation Americans? Two years of true public service? Or perhaps go back to the “Potwalloper Franchise,” which required the facility to be large enough to boil a pot of soup before one could vote.

Whatever the answer, we need a serious conversation.

Driving the most successful democratic republic in world history needs good people controlling the wheel. Maybe, with all the other criteria, a voter, at the top of the ballot, should be asked to write an essay on “Why I should be allowed to vote” ... in English.

Podcast thread for Sept 14

 

here we go with another big week.

America And Russia Suffering From Cognitive Fatigue

American Thinker 

The world periodically rebalances itself. The last great rebalancing occurred after the Second World War, when the United States became the undisputed leader of the free world and the Soviet Union eventually reached the height of its influence before cratering spectacularly. Today, new usurpers are claiming they represent the future, principally China, Islam, and Russia. The U.S. won’t necessarily lose the mantle of leadership, but it will be challenged.

The U.S. has had a good run, but, like so many other powers before it, has lost much of its essential grounding and vigor, a victim of strategic complacency and too much easy prosperity. No country has a guaranteed or even implied “sell-by date.” Its longevity depends on its ability to maintain internal consistency and reject a big-tent mentality that treats all ideas as equal. History amply demonstrates that they are not. It also reveals that when internal discipline recedes, so do a country’s fortunes. We are at that moment today.

We’ll concentrate on Russia, but the same lessons can be applied to China and to Islam’s challenge to Western values and traditions, which threatens us as much as any frontal assault. The essential takeaway is that our country can face any number of enemies if we remain grounded in our values and traditions, especially the moral confidence that binds us together as a people. At present, a growing number of our citizens have lost, or are losing, their confidence that America is unique and special—and, warts and all, the best example of what a country should aspire to be.

America and Russia are both suffering from what I term cognitive fatigue, though for different reasons.

Nations become cognitively fatigued when their collective ability to process complexity, maintain coherence, and act with discipline erodes. It’s not about weakness—it’s about overload, revealed through short attention spans, hyper-reactivity, belief in falsehoods, forgotten or distorted institutional memory, paralysis caused by a lack of confidence, and distrust of institutions.

Russia appears to have an advantage because a single person sets its course. It can act quickly because Putin does not have to negotiate with a legislature, the public, the bureaucracy, the courts, political opponents, or allies. Yet that apparent advantage has a cost: When the information reaching the top is inaccurate, consequential errors and false assumptions accumulate.

The West uses its best features—open debate, legal restraint, institutional transparency, and constitutional checks and balances—to process information and make decisions. Those same features can make us painfully slow when speed matters. In the post-WWII era, the U.S. has often been reactive and, more recently, has allowed Mr. Putin more room to run before catching up and applying its superior industrial and military resources, supported by the full weight of Western capabilities, to meet the challenge. Of course, that assumes we marshal the political will and fortitude to do so.

Unfortunately, both countries are suffering from the effects of cognitive fatigue. America’s are painfully visible along its expanding fault lines. Russia is in the same boat, but its condition is much worse, as I’ll explain.

Russia’s ability to substantially expand its war effort in Ukraine is far more constrained than its rhetoric argues. Its manpower pool is already strained, the training pipeline is saturated, and the industrial base is running flat out. Every additional mobilization round produces diminishing returns: lower-quality recruits, more domestic resistance, and inevitable economic disruption. Equipment losses continue to outpace production, logistics are stretched thin, and the loyalty of the ruling class is highly suspect.

In other words, Russia’s capacity to escalate militarily is eroding faster than its political willingness to escalate. Putin can announce new offensives, threaten new mobilizations, or saber-rattle once more, but the underlying system is increasingly hard-pressed to generate the combat power required to deliver on those threats. Its rhetoric increasingly exceeds its capacity.

This creates a strategic paradox that Western governments aren’t acknowledging openly. Ukrainian victory is desirable in principle, but many Western policymakers view a destabilized Russia as their nightmare scenario. An effective Russian defeat could trigger internal disarray, political infighting, or uncertainty concerning nuclear command and control—outcomes scarier than a stalemate. Thus, the West is caught between two imperatives: supporting Ukraine strongly enough to ensure it prevails, but not so dramatically or rapidly that Russia’s internal stability collapses.

The uncomfortable truth is that an exhausted or cornered nuclear-armed Russia suffering increased instability is ultimately more frightening to Western policymakers than a Ukrainian victory is desirable.

America and Russia suffer from cognitive fatigue, but Russia’s version is deeper, more corrosive, and much harder for outsiders to observe. America’s fatigue is loud, visible, and self-diagnosing—expressed through open dissent, media scrutiny, and institutional transparency. By contrast, Putin’s Russia is concealed behind censorship, coercion, and a façade of control.

The Kremlin’s censorship restrictions mask the reality of its debacle: fractured leadership, worsening corruption, infighting, and a population increasingly at odds with the war’s stated purpose. What appears to be resolve from the outside is actually the product of state disinformation.

A strongman autocracy has great difficulty handling complexity or correcting its own mistakes because doing so risks ripping the mask off—something Putin cannot allow. Acknowledging failure threatens Putin’s safety. Russia’s fatigue is therefore far more advanced, more dangerous, and more structurally difficult to reverse, even as the full extent of Russia’s failures remains hidden behind state-controlled narratives.

Russia’s one-man rule, often mistaken for strength, becomes a severe liabilityin a cognitively fatigued state. A system that relies on one man to interpret reality, absorb complexity, and make fateful decisions eventually fails. Putin’s personal dominance prevents corrective feedback, suppresses dissent, and allows strategic mistakes to compound rather than self-correct.

By contrast, the West’s distributed leadership—messy, argumentative, and at times agonizingly slow—has the advantage. By creating multiple points where false assumptions can be challenged, corrective information and decisions more naturally follow. Democracies frequently stumble, but they also self-repair.

Historically, the West has a habit of arriving perennially late to the challenge but arriving decisively, with coordinated industrial, military, and political power that authoritarian systems can’t match. Our pluralism can be mistaken for weakness, while the danger remains ambiguous. But once danger becomes undeniable, our institutions align, our alliances activate, and our strategic response emerges—often just in the nick of time.

That may be the most important difference between American and Russian cognitive fatigue. Russia can conceal its fatigue because one man controls the narrative. America cannot. Our disorder is visible precisely because our system permits disagreement, criticism, and competing interpretations of reality.

The question is whether we can retain enough confidence in ourselves, our institutions, and the principles that created our success to recognize the danger—and act on it—before cognitive fatigue becomes something difficult to reverse. If we cannot, the next great rebalancing may not simply mark the end of American dominance. It may mark America’s most avoidable catastrophe.

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President Vladimir Putin Explains Why NATO Wants a War Against Russia

Conservative Treehouse 

Sometimes Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin just nails the issue in a way that is difficult for western voices to deconstruct. This is one of those examples.

Using the reference of the EU recently raising interest rates in an effort to lower energy costs, a seemingly disconnected approach that attaches energy policy to monetary policy, Vladimir Putin outlines exactly why the EU Central Bank approach is used.  This is a really important dynamic to understand.

For a long time, Russia battled with the EU over the pricing process for oil and gas.  Russia, specifically Putin, wanted to sell oil/gas to the EU based on production prices and fair profits.

Europe wanted to buy Russian oil/gas based on “market prices” which are manipulated by speculation and traders.

Putin doesn’t like this pricing approach because it artificially inflates the price based on speculation, trading and inorganic influences.

Instead, Putin always said the “market approach” makes your energy prices go up, even when production capacitary prices go down (productivity).

Producers can provide increases in energy volume at lower per unit levels just by turning a dial on gas volume.  Why would Europe want to pay more, when the cost to deliver a higher volume lowers the per unit price.  The EU never had a good answer, other than that’s just the way the ‘western market’ works.

Concluding the first day of his working visit to India for the BRICS meeting, Vladimir Putin answered a media question about the EU and used this reference to outline why the financial system of the EU is actually the underlying reason for their need to have conflict with Russia.  This is really interesting.

Question: You have spoken at length today about the BRICS countries. I would like to raise a question concerning a nation which, though geographically more distant from here, is perhaps closer to you personally – Germany. As is known, elections have recently taken place in Saxony, where the Alternative for Germany secured a decisive victory. It appears a similar trend is emerging in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well. How do you view these developments?

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I do not wish to, nor will I, comment on matters of the internal political developments currently unfolding in the Federal Republic.

However, there are points which merit attention in this context – and I will explain why. In my view, all that is now happening across Europe as a whole is the consequence of systemic errors committed by the so‑called West, or, to be more precise, by the globalist circles of the West, in the political, security and economic spheres.

Everyone is prone to mistakes. We, too, have made numerous mistakes, as has the wider world. Yet the difficulty for the globalist West lies here: following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, they perceived themselves as standing atop the “summit of Mount Olympus,” and evidently concluded that, firstly, they were permitted everything and, secondly, that they themselves were incapable of error. From then on, these mistakes began to accumulate and snowball.

In the security sphere – the meaning is clear. This has taken the form of attempts to put pressure on the Russian Federation, initially through the use of terrorists in the Caucasus and separatists, then via other methods, and now – by means of the neo‑Nazi regime in Ukraine. This process continues unabated.

At one time, we were included in the G8. Yet, as I have previously stated, this did not constitute full‑fledged membership. I saw this plainly and saw everything quite clearly. Although, on the surface, all appeared well and all the requisite words were spoken, in practice – I reiterate – they directly supported separatism in the Caucasus and sought to break up Russia. This is a matter of fact. Furthermore, today’s crisis in Ukraine was likewise instigated by them. These are persistent and recurring elements of pressure.

After all, we have repeatedly stated that NATO’s expansion eastward is unacceptable to us. Ultimately, they reached Ukraine. President Yanukovych was removed from office through a coup d’état. I am not now offering any assessment of President Yanukovych’s actions. There were, most likely, numerous mistakes, and probably grounds for the population’s discontent. Yet he was opposed to Ukraine’s accession to NATO. As soon as the regime was changed through, I repeat, a bloody coup d’état, the objective of pulling Ukraine into NATO was immediately set in motion, and this, in fact, became the root cause of today’s tragic events in Ukraine.

They, the Western globalist elites, bear responsibility for this, although they persistently seek to shift the blame onto us.

As for the economic sphere, the most pressing issue at present is, naturally, energy. This represents yet another area – namely, the economic domain – in which mistakes have been made. How many times did we discuss with them the necessity of maintaining our established energy relations? We supplied gas to Europe at a price of $150 – well, $180 dollars – per 1,000 cubic metres. “That is too expensive,” they told us, “we must switch to market pricing.” But what does market pricing mean?

Under our long-term contracts, prices were – and indeed still are – indexed to the price of oil and petroleum products, which are determined by market mechanisms. “No,” they insisted, “prices must be set on the exchange.” We warned them that gas is not a market commodity, or at least not a classic market commodity; this approach will yield nothing and your prices will only increase. And so, it has turned out: prices are now at 1,000 dollars or euros per 1,000 cubic metres. And they may well rise even further.

How, in fact, is the price of gas formed on the European exchanges? It is not determined by producers, but by exchange traders. Currently in Germany – as far as I am aware – the current objective is simply to fill the gas storage facilities to 70 percent capacity –the objective is of filling only to 70 percent.

Whether they will succeed in reaching this target remains unclear. The situation in the Netherlands is even worse. And why is this so? Those who engage in exchange trading are unconcerned with the technical condition of these storage facilities and the physical volumes involved. They believe that today, it is more advantageous to extract gas from storage that was purchased at lower prices, and as for tomorrow – well, we’ll see. This will result in prices rising not just to 1,000, but to 1,500. Thus, yet another mistake has been made, this time in the economic sphere.

I have heard, likewise, that in Germany itself, the current authorities claim to be following the course set by the previous leadership, and the name of Helmut Kohl is often invoked in this context. I was personally acquainted with Mr Kohl. I can state with certainty: he did not hold the views that the present leadership of the Christian Democratic Union espouses – he simply did not. I spoke with him when he was still Chancellor, and after he had left office, he visited us. He believed that the future of Europe, and of the Federal Republic, would be secured only if close, neighbourly, allied relations with Russia were maintained. We must complement one another, he used to say; only thus could the European civilisation preserve itself as an independent centre of intellectual and cultural strength, and, by extension, all that follows in the political and economic domains. Those were Mr Kohl’s words to me.

Yet today’s European elites adhere to a different perspective. They now seek to frighten their populations with a mythical Russian threat, purportedly dating back to the Soviet era. But such a threat does not exist, and never has. We do not threaten, nor do we intend to threaten, European countries – for what reason would we? No one appears to consider that we have no grounds for any conflict with Europe. All issues were resolved by the outcome of the Second World War. Moreover, all that transpired following the collapse of the Soviet Union was undertaken with the consent of the Russian Federation as the successor state. Any actions contrary to these agreements run counter to our interests and are inconsistent with the fundamental principles of international law and the UN Charter. That is the essence of the matter.

Nonetheless, they persist in this course, demanding certain changes. But what changes do they seek? Are they attempting to revise the results of the Second World War? To what end are they steering their peoples? Toward war with the Russian Federation? Now, they speak of contemplating the dispatch of troops to the territory of Ukraine. This would mean war with Russia. And I presume that European citizens understand what is unfolding. {SOURCE}

Speculation, exchange trading, market pricing, etc. these are the reasons why the EU is presenting an increase in central bank interest rates to try and lower energy prices.  The central bank approach has nothing to do with the price of the energy (oil/gas) and everything to do with the financial markets speculating on the prices of oil and gas and profiting from the speculation/trading itself.

As noted by Russian President Putin, allowing hedge funds, financial interests and inorganic market forces to set the prices of an item disconnects that item from the economic principle of supply and demand.  The prices that people suffer for oil and gas are being driven by the mechanisms set up by western financial interests.  This is manipulative and creates pain on the consumer and the people who have to pay more.

[SOURCE}

Oil, Gas and Orange Juice

Conservative Treehouse 

Western financial experts have a self-interest to never explain this issue. Instead, they frame the issue as BRICS seeking an alternate currency in the energy markets. However, the currency or petrodollar is not the issue. At least it’s not the core issue.

What Vladimir Putin, and by extension BRICS, do not want is corporatism -corporate financial control over govt systems- determining prices.

To give you an example of Vladimir Putin’s argument, consider orange juice.

Why should orange juice in California or Florida cost $7/gal, when the oranges are in CA or FL?

Shouldn’t the orange juice in FL or CA be cheaper than in, say, Minnesota? Logic would say, yes.

However, that would mean the corporations who have purchased the OJ production couldn’t maximize predatory profiting, through nonmarket forces, ie. “Commodity trading.”

The same organic supply/demand rule applies to strawberries, or [fill in the blank].

What is setting the price, what the west calls the “market price,” is actually the commodity trading issue. That means Minnesota, Florida and California consumers all pay the same price.  Within the energy sector Putin views this as unfair and unworkable.

To his credit, under normal supply/demand Putin would be selling oil/gas to Europe at much lower prices than “market prices” because the pipelines are in place, the proximity is near and the delivery is cheap.

However, for Europe that means the financial markets would not control energy prices. Europe wants financial control, not cheap energy.

The need for control is a reaction to fear. The financial system, the bankers and the multinational corporations, fears their loss of control.

So, war!

“One Ping Only, Vasily”

Conservative Treehouse 

♦President Trump’s foreign policy approach brought North and South Korea together away from the table of conflict.  ♦President Trump’s foreign policy approach brought Serbia and Kosovo together away from the table of conflict.  ♦President Trump’s foreign policy rallied the Gulf Cooperation Council to stop Qatar’s support for Islamic extremists via the Muslim Brotherhood. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy brought Turkey and the Kurdish forces together away from war and conflict.  ♦President Trump’s foreign policy created a ceasefire to stop the bloodshed in Syria.  President Trump mediated a cessation of hostilities between India & Pakistan in the Kashmir region. ♦President Trump’s foreign policy brought Israel and the UAE together… and then Bahrain… and then Sudan in the Abraham Accords.

President Trump executes a clear foreign policy, a unique doctrine of sorts, where national security is achieved by leveraging U.S. economic power. It has been a fundamental shift in approaching both allies and adversaries; summarized within the oft repeated phrase: “economic security is national security.”

The Trump Doctrine of using economics to achieve national security objectives is a paradigm shift in American politics.  Modern U.S. history provides no easy reference strategy, because until now no American president has ever leveraged this approach.

U.S. B-2 bombers struck Iran on June 22, 2025, as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, targeting key nuclear facilities.

Immediately following the August 2025, Alaska summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump, Russia restarted Arctic-2 LNG terminals and began increasing natural gas (LNG) production for storage on ‘floating platforms.’

President Trump met with President Putin on August 15, 2025, and the curious increase in Russian production began on August 18, 2025.

It absolutely did not make sense that Russia would start producing even more LNG considering the previously imposed western sanctions against them, and the fact that Russia was already overproducing LNG. As noted by analysts at the time. Russia had no market for this LNG, yet Russia began increasing LNG supply anyway.  For six months Vladimir Putin extracted and stored LNG.

Two months later, on October 25, 2025, President Trump did something odd.  President Trump had attended the ASEAN summit in Asia before; however, this time instead of flying West over the Pacific, he flew east to Malaysia.  This put a refueling stop in Qatar, which everyone just ignored as a routine part of the travel plan.

However, upon arrival in Qatar, the Amir of Qatar came to the airport to pay a courtesy visit to President Trump.  They spoke aboard Airforce One during the refueling stop.

Four months later, on February 28, 2026, Operation Epic Fury against Iran began.

Within 36 hours Qatar announced they were shutting down all LNG production, following retaliatory strikes carried out by Iran.  Overnight the price of LNG skyrocketed, and immediate concerns were raised by ASEAN countries who are heavily reliant on LNG production from the Gulf.

Southeast Asia doesn’t use LNG for heating (don’t need it), that specific cheap energy resource powers everything else in their economy, cooking, transportation, electricity etc.

Six months earlier Russia began storing LNG and oil on floating platforms with no customers.  A few days after Qatar made their March force majeure shutdown announcement, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued an interim license for Russia to sell oil and gas that was loaded onto “floating platforms and vessels” before March 12 and was valid through midnight Washington time on April 11. [Treasury Notice Here – OFAC Technical Details Here]

Either Russian President Putin was the luckiest guy in the world, or Russia knew something.  In August 2025 what Russia did following the Alaska summit did not make sense.  In March 2026 what they were doing for the past six months suddenly looked like something more than simply fortuitous.

♦ On August 25, 2026, CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unexpected trip to Moscow. Western media reported that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow to warn his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), about striking Baltic NATO states.  Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed this western framing.

Three days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit, Russia blew up a massive ammunition depot in Kiev that Zelenskyy claimed he didn’t know about. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the placement of a weapons depot next to civilians was “terrible negligence.” The first impact, he said, hit a depot storing shells, mines, other munitions, and drones that “definitely shouldn’t have been there.”

On September 5, 2026, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow to discuss ceasefire negotiations.  On September 8, President Trump and President Putin held a telephone call to discuss the visit. President Putin’s senior aide Yury Ushakov documented the phone call in a Kremlin readout.

Part of the readout: “[Russia’s] vision of the overall progress on the battlefield and achieving the goals and objectives of the special military operation. Speaking of which, actual tangible actions that the Americans could take to expedite the cessation of the hostilities were outlined.” 

President Putin outlined tangible actions “Americans could take”?

Russian President Putin doesn’t believe that President Trump or any other U.S. President actually controls the mechanisms of government.  This opinion is underlined and emphasized when it comes to the U.S. Intelligence Community and the CIA.

Putin has often stated that no U.S. President controls the CIA, and Putin has said while he never views the U.S. President or the people of America as his enemy, the CIA are the problem.  Putin views the CIA as the real control mechanism within the U.S. government.  America is not Russia’s enemy, the CIA is.  That’s Putin’s perspective in a nutshell.

Obviously, President Trump would counter that outlook by saying no, he is in control of the USIC and all the downstream institutions.  Unfortunately, President Putin would be incredulous to the possibility; he has a lifetime of watching things unfold like “Russiagate.”

So, here’s my point:

Did Trump just tell Ratcliffe to send “one ping only“?

Basically, using the timing of 9/11 anniversary to prove to Putin he does actually have control over the CIA.

The ping:

The CIA 9/11 PDBs

RELATED: KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian diesel, saying the attacks are causing a fuel shortage.

Trump was asked by a reporter if he had spoken with Zelenskyy following his recent conversation with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Trump responded by calling on Zelenskyy to halt strikes against Russia.

“Mr. Zelensky has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the Irish Open, which is being played at his Doonbeg golf club. “Let him go after targets but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel fuel.” (more)