From Charles R. Wellington

Monroe

To the Editor:

Ukraine recently celebrated its Independence Day marking its separation from the Soviet Union. Many world leaders stood by President Zelensky in Kyiv, but it didn’t even get a mention from our President. He was too busy proudly showing off a photograph of him and Russian President Putin in the Oval Office. For those who may have watched Trump’s embarrassing meeting with Putin in Alaska the week before, his gushing over the photo only reinforced the national embarrassment of that useless encounter. 

Trump responds to only one thing — flattery. Putin knows this, the sycophants in his cabinet know this and the Republicans in Congress certainly follow this. Listening to him brag about the photo in the Oval Office spoke volumes about what is important to him.  

As Trump continually uses deflection to try to control the news cycle every day, the important issues often get buried. What happened to the Epstein files, what happened to the “serious consequences” if Putin didn’t agree to a peace deal, what happened to Trump’s insistence that Putin meet with Zelensky, what happened to his ending the war in 24 hours? How about bringing down the price of food? It hasn’t happened and just wait until the full impact of his misguided tariffs kick in.  

The importance of electing politicians with principals has never been more critical. Zelensky is such a leader. Try as Trump does to rewrite history, e.g. he won in 2020, the January 6 insurrectionists were patriots, job numbers, inflation and interest rates are fake news, truth has a way of surfacing. Trump’s lies continue to multiply. Some will always believe his claims, but many are seeing what a horrible mistake it was to put him back in office. 

President Zelensky offers a clear example of a president who serves his people and country as compared to one who exploits the office to serve himself.