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"This is one of the most serious geopolitical mistakes of my lifetime" - Senator Angus King on Trump's rancid betrayal of Ukraine and the West

Historian, author, commentator Ruth Ben-Ghiat joins us live tomorrow at 130pm EST

Simon Rosenberg

Nov 23

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Morning all. US negotiators are meeting in Geneva today with representatives from Ukraine and Europe in an emergency session brought on by our corrupt, madman leader’s outrageous threats this week to end all support for Ukraine by this Thursday (hey, why not? What about Friday?) if they don’t agree to a Russian crafted plan to end the conflict.

Events are likely to over take this post today, but we learned a few things yesterday worth sharing……

First, this horribly corrupt and dangerous plan (see my post from yesterday for more) was forged in part here in the United States in late October by Special Envoy Witkoff, Jared Kushner and a Putin emissary Kirill Dmitriev (yes a sanctioned Russian was allowed to enter the US).

It must be noted that Dmitiriev is a banker, not a diplomat, who runs one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, and that this new American-backed proposal has various provisions that would enrich American investors and Trump itself. So I can write here without hyberbole that Witkoff-Kushner-Trump (and Vance) are attempting to sell out Ukraine, Europe, and democracies throughout the world in part to enrich themselves.

Second, Secretary of State Rubio, who is also the national security advisor to Trump, told alarmed Senators on a call yesterday that the plan was a Russian wish list not backed by the US. A few hours later he reversed course, and claimed that in fact it was an American plan not a Russian one. The lying, incompetence, confusion, recklessness, malevolence - it’s all jawdropping, and incredibly dangerous. Here’s how the NYT described these extraordinary turn of events:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that the United States “authored” a 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, after a Republican senator asserted that Mr. Rubio had distanced himself from the proposal and called it a Russian initiative.
Mr. Rubio made the assertion on social media after Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said Mr. Rubio had earlier on Saturday held a call with a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers attending a security conference in Canada. Mr. Rounds said that in the call, Mr. Rubio had suggested that it was a Russian proposal, not a U.S. plan.
“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Mr. Rounds said Saturday at a news conference at the Halifax International Security Forum, speaking about Mr. Rubio. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”
Mr. Rounds said Mr. Rubio “made it clear that it was an opportunity to have received” the plan. “You now have one side being presented, and the opportunity for the other side to respond,” Mr. Rounds said. Some critics of the plan have said it would force Ukraine to make unreasonable concessions to Russia.
Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, on Saturday denied an allegation that the plan was essentially a Russian wish list, saying that this was “blatantly false.”
“As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians,” Mr. Pigott wrote on social media.
The plan, which was initially negotiated between the United States and Russia without direct Ukrainian involvement and has not officially been made public but has been widely leaked, would involve Ukraine ceding land it currently holds, limiting the size of its military and foregoing any attempt to join NATO. In the past, Ukraine has rejected these steps as a capitulation, and Ukraine’s allies have pushed back against the proposal.

Lots of reporting this morning that Vance is the lead in this traitorous new effort to appease Putin and throw Europe and Ukraine under the bus:

And this from a top WSJ reporter:

All of this is happening now in my view because Trump’s decline is accelerating, everyone knows it, and factions in the regime are starting to make power graps and go full on Game of Thrones on one another……..

OK, Simon, not a normal Sunday Hopium post. Nope. It isn’t. For what is happening here is incredibly dangerous and not fucking OK. We need to hit the phones at 9am EST tomorrow and demand that our Congressional leaders fight this incredible, historic sell out of our national interests and appeasement of Putin.

Trump was rebuked a few weeks ago when the Senate voted three times to roll back his terrible tariffs. He was rebuked again, powerfully, in the 2025 elections. Last week Congress delivered one of the most aggressive legislative rebukes of a President in all of our history. And now we must rebuke him again for this outrageous “plan” and attempt to sell out Ukraine, Europe, and democracies all across the world, including our own.

We need to be loud tomorrow, very, very loud.

We will be talking about all this and more with historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat tomorrow at 130pm EST. You can join our live discussion by clicking here right before the start time.

Now, Let’s Get To Work Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a new essay I talk about how one of the ways we win the 2026 midterms is by providing early support to our candidates and parties to allow them to staff up now, be loud now, define the terms of the debate now, before the inevitable onslaught on AI slop, Russian disinfo, and Trumpian lies funded through bribes and corruption wash across the land. The midterms could be won or lost in these next few months - not in the fall of 2026 - and we need be fighting now with everything we got.

Winning The Midterms - Support Our 2026 Candidates

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $53k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my interview with Gov. Cooper
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $96k raised, $250,000 goal, - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch my inspiring interview with Senator Ossoff
Hopium Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $15,000 raised, $50,000 goal - Donate to all four endorsed House challengers with one click | Learn More | Watch our new interviews with Christina Bohannan (IA-01) and Jo Mendoza (AZ-06)
Hopium House 7 - Our Top House Incumbents Running For Re-election (2026) - $243k raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer | Watch My Interviews With Our Intrepid Incumbents | Keeping these newly elected Members in Congress is the first step in winning the House in 2026

Expanding The Senate and Electoral College Maps (2026-2032)

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $202,000 raised, $250,000 goal - Join our new campaign to expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas | Donate to all five state parties in a single contribution | Watch my interviews with Alaska Chair Eric Croft, Florida Chair Nikki Fried, Iowa Chair Rita Hart and Texas Chair Kendall Scudder | Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $10,000 to each of our five state parties!
North Carolina and Ohio - Learn more about our 2026 opportunities in Ohio in this conversation with David Pepper, and in North Carolina in this new interview Anderson Clayton

Defending America, Winning The Big Arguments With Trump - We have two recommended actions today:

1 - Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act Upon Our Four-Part Agenda - We need to be loud people, very, very loud and make the case for our four part agenda:

Stand with Ukraine and our European allies, and far more forcefully challenge Trump’s traitorous efforts to sell out the US and the West to Russia; demand Congress rebuke/issue a no confidence vote on his 28 point “plan”
Roll back Trump’s terrible, illegal tariffs that are re-igniting inflation, driving up prices, shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to working people, hurting small businesses and farmers, reviving tyrannical “taxation without representation,” and alienating governments and people throughout the world
Defend our democracy, rule of law, and our liberties by blocking the expansion of ICE, restoring due process for immigrants across the country, vigorously defending the 1st Amendment, warring against his outrageous targeting of his domestic political opponents, and ending the use of the military on our streets and the unlawful occupation of our cities
Fight Trump’s war on science, higher education and our public health; reverse - not delay - the cuts to the ACA and Medicaid; support and co-sponsor Rep. Haley Stevens’ effort to Impeach and remove Robert Kennedy

2 - Celebrate America, Our Constitution, Our 250th Birthday By Bringing Our Resolutions Project To Your Community - Next year, on July 4th, America celebrates it’s 250th birthday. We need to make this holiday, a celebration of our Declaration Of Independence from a mad king, our day, and not allow it to become his.

One way we can do this is by bringing our Resolutions Project to your community or state. Imagine if by July 4th of next year a large number of towns, counties and states had passed formal resolutions, in the spirit of our Declaration of Independence, defending our Constitution and condemning the “injuries,” “abuses,” and “usurpations” of our mad king. For as our Founders wrote in the Declaration:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

So far Hopium members have introduced or passed resolutions in 85 communities in 23 states. In the coming days we will be convening to discuss how to bring this campaign to more places and start planning to Own The Fourth next year.

Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder!

Keep working hard all, and remember Hopium is hope with a plan. We don’t just hope tomorrow will be better than today.

We do the work to make it so.

- Simon

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