HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO TO DISCUSS ALEXI GIANNOULIAS AND DIGITAL LICENSES

 LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

THOMAS FRIEDMAN

 

OpinionThomas L. Friedman

Trump’s Neville Chamberlain Prize

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist

• Nov. 22, 2025

Finally, finally, President Trump just might get a peace prize that would secure his place in history. Unfortunately, though, it is not that Nobel peace prize he so covets. It is the “Neville Chamberlain Peace Prize” — awarded by history to the leader of the country that most flagrantly sells out its allies and its values to an aggressive dictator.

This prize richly deserves to be shared by Trump’s many “secretaries of state” — Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Dan Driscoll — who together negotiated the surrender of Ukraine to Vladimir Putin’s demands without consulting Ukraine or our European allies in advance — and then told Ukraine it had to accept the plan by Thanksgiving.

That is this coming Thursday.

If Ukraine is, indeed, forced to surrender to the specific terms of this “deal” by then, Thanksgiving will no longer be an American holiday. It will become a Russian holiday. It will become a day of thanks that victory in Putin’s savage and misbegotten war against Ukraine’s people, which has been an utter failure — morally, militarily, diplomatically and economically — was delivered to Russia not by the superiority of its arms or the virtue of its claims, but by an American administration.

How do you say “Thanksgiving” in Russian?

To all the gentlemen who delivered this turkey to Moscow, I can offer only one piece of advice: Be under no illusions. Neither Fox News nor the White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt will be writing the history of this deal. If you force it upon Ukraine as it is, every one of your names will live in infamy alongside that of Chamberlain, who is remembered today for only one thing:

He was the British prime minister who advocated the policy of appeasement, which aimed to avoid war with Adolf Hitler’s Germany by giving in to his demands. This was concretized in the 1938 Munich Agreement, in which Chamberlain, along with others in Europe, allowed Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain boasted it would secure “peace for our time.” A year later, Poland was invaded, starting World War II and leading to Chamberlain’s resignation — and his everlasting shame.

This Trump plan, if implemented, will do the modern equivalent. By rewarding Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine based on his obsession with making it part of Mother Russia, the U.S. will be putting the whole European Union under Putin’s thumb. Trump’s message to our allies will be clear: Don’t provoke Putin, because as long as I am commander in chief, the United States will pay no price and we will bear no burden in the defense of your freedom.

Which is why, if this plan is forced on Ukraine as is, we will need to add a new verb to the diplomatic lexicon: “Trumped” — to be sold out by an American president, for reasons none of his citizens understand (but surely there are reasons). And history will never forget the men who did it — Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, Dan Driscoll — for their shame will be everlasting.

As a Wall Street Journal editorial on Friday put it: “Mr. Trump may figure he can finally wash his hands of Ukraine if Europe and Ukraine reject his offer. He’s clearly sick of dealing with the war. But appeasing Mr. Putin would haunt the rest of his presidency. If Mr. Trump thinks American voters hate war, wait until he learns how much they hate dishonor. … A bad deal in Ukraine would broadcast to U.S. enemies that they can seize what they want with force or nuclear blackmail or by pressing on until America loses interest.”

Mind you, I am not at all against a negotiated solution. Indeed, from the beginning of this war I have made the point that it will end only with a “dirty deal.” But it cannot be a filthy deal, and the Trump plan is what history will call a filthy deal.

Even before you get to the key details, think of how absurd it is for Trump to strike a deal with Putin and not even include Ukraine and our European allies in the negotiations until they were virtually done. Trump then declared it must be accepted by Thursday, as if Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who has a parliament that he needs to win acceptance from, could possibly do so by then, even if he wanted to.

As my Times colleague David Sanger observed in his analysis of the plan’s content: “Many of the 28 points in the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan offered by the White House read like they had been drafted in the Kremlin. They reflect almost all Mr. Putin’s maximalist demands.”

Ukraine would have to formally give Russia all the territory it has declared for itself in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The United States would recognize that as Russian territory. No NATO forces could be based inside Ukraine to ensure that Russia could never invade again. The Ukrainian military would be capped at 600,000 troops, a 25 percent cut from current levels, and it would be barred from possessing long-range weapons that could reach Russia. Kyiv would receive vague security guarantees from the U.S. against a Russian re-invasion (but who in Ukraine, or Moscow, would trust them coming from Trump?).

Under the Trump plan, $100 billion in frozen Russian assets would be put toward U.S.-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine, and the U.S. would then receive 50 percent of the profits from that investment. (Yes, we are demanding half of the profits generated by a fund to rebuild a ravaged nation.)

Trump, facing blowback from allies, Congress and Ukraine, said Saturday that this was not his “final offer” but added, if Zelensky refuses to accept the terms, “then he can continue to fight his little heart out.” As always with Trump, he is all over the place — and as always, ready to stick it to Zelensky, the guy fighting for his country’s freedom, and never to Putin, the guy trying to take Ukraine’s freedom away.

What would an acceptable dirty deal look like?

It would freeze the forces in place, but never formally cede any seized Ukrainian territory. It would insist that European security forces, backed by U.S. logistics, be stationed along the cease-fire line as a symbolic tripwire against any Russian re-invasion. It would require Russia to pay a significant amount of money to cover all the carnage it has inflicted on Ukraine — and keep Moscow isolated and under sanctions until it does — and include a commitment by the European Union to admit Ukraine as a member as soon as it is ready, without Russian interference.

This last point is vital. It is so the Russian people would have to forever look at their Ukrainian Slavic brothers and sisters in the thriving European Union, while they are stuck in Putin’s kleptocracy. That contrast is Putin’s best punishment for this war and the thing that would cause him the most trouble after it is over.

This would be a dirty deal that history would praise Trump for — getting the best out of a less than perfect hand, by using U.S. leverage on both sides, as he did in Gaza.

But just using U.S. leverage on Ukraine is a filthy deal — folding our imperfect hand to a Russian leader who is playing a terrible one.

There is a term for that in poker: sucker.

 

Trump's lawfare takes a big L The war isn't over but this battle was a rout. Lisa Needham Nov 25 Halligan, Bondi, Witkoff, and Trump at the US Open in September. (XNY/Star Max/GC Images) Lindsey Halligan, President Donald Trump’s comically incompetent US attorney, is out, and along with her, the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. So what’s next? In the near future, of course, you can expect unhinged howling from the administration. White House superflack Karoline Leavitt is being very cool and normal about this, going on Fox News yesterday to complain and threaten James Comey. “Everybody knows that James Comey lied to Congress. It’s as clear as day. And the judge took an unprecedented action to throw these cases out to shield James Comey and Letitia James of accountability based on a technical ruling.” She followed this with “maybe James Comey should pump the brakes on his victory lap.” Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com Leavitt: "We believe the attorney in this case, Lindsey Halligan, is not only extremely qualified for this position but she was in fact legally appointed ... maybe Comey should pump the brakes on his victory lap." Mon, 24 Nov 2025 20:30:39 GMT View on Bluesky Leavitt’s statement about Comey really highlights that the administration isn’t thinking of these cases as the government prosecuting a defendant. Instead, it’s Trump locked in a personal battle with Comey, and it’s just unfair that judges won’t let him win. Lindsey Halligan's bad bad week Lisa Needham · Nov 21 Read full story What happens next depends a lot on how much the government wants to go the mat on the legality of Halligan’s appointment and the now-dismissed indictments. If Trump were merely evil, rather than evil and fully unhinged, it would make the most sense to cut Halligan loose, making her the face of this failure, and stop trying to prosecute Comey and James. It does not, however, look like that will be the government’s approach. Per Leavitt, Halligan is not only “extremely qualified but she was, in fact, legally appointed.” Sigh. The government can appeal the dismissal of the indictments, but that necessitates proving that Halligan was lawfully appointed. Put another way, the decision here didn’t turn on any challenge to the indictments themselves. Rather, the indictments are out because Halligan never had the authority to bring them in the first place. On appeal, the fight would therefore be limited to the appointment issue. But if a higher court were to resuscitate the Comey and James charges by reinstalling Halligan as some form of US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, she’s still stuck with the fact that these indictments are garbage. Getting Halligan back in only fixes the Halligan problem, not the indictment problem. The DOJ has already signaled that it’s determined to keep Halligan in her role, with Bondi announcing she had made Halligan a “special US Attorney, so she is in court, she can fight in court just like she was.” This is ridiculous, of course, as this court ruling means Halligan is not allowed to work on any cases, period, as she’s not legally in her role. And she certainly can’t work on the Comey or James cases because they don’t exist any longer. Additionally, the courts have generally not loved the “Pam Bondi magics away all the problems by naming someone a special US attorney” approach. In tossing Halligan, the court said it “reject[ed] the Attorney General’s attempt to retroactively confer Special Attorney status on Ms. Halligan.” Bondi’s argument also didn’t work when the government tried it with Alina Habba. Nor did it work with Bill Essayli. If Bondi’s expansive view of special attorneys were adopted, it would basically destroy any requirement of Senate confirmation. It would vest all power in the AG to name whoever they want to a US attorney role with no checks or balances whatsoever. Pam Bondi is breaking the DOJ Liz Dye · Jul 16 Read full story The government has already made a trip to the Third Circuit over Habba’s appointment, appealing the lower court decision that she was not lawfully appointed. It did not go very well. During oral argument, Judge D. Brooks Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, called the government’s actions “a complete circumvention, it seems, of the appointments clause.” Halligan’s situation is very similar to that of Habba and two other interim US attorneys, Sigal Chattah and Essayli, both of whom have been found to be unlawfully appointed. For all four of these attorneys, the administration essentially has to get a court to agree that there is no restriction on Trump and Bondi stringing together a series of temporary appointments to allow a handpicked US attorney to evade Senate confirmation indefinitely. Sure, Trump will ultimately get this in front of his reliable pals at the Supreme Court, but it isn’t really clear how they could save Trump’s US attorney nominees without essentially throwing out the statute governing US attorney vacancies and the Appointments Clause and letting a president appoint whoever they want, whenever they want, and never have to go before the Senate. Yes, this Supreme Court has been extremely solicitous of Trump, giving him everything he wants, but it isn’t a given that the court’s conservatives would be willing to sign on to something that would let future presidents install US attorneys with no Senate confirmation. Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com Comey: "I'm grateful the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence & incompetence... I was inspired by the career people who refused to be part of this travesty. It cost some of them their jobs, but it preserved their integrity, which is beyond price" Mon, 24 Nov 2025 19:53:39 GMT View on Bluesky As Leavitt alluded to in her comments yesterday, Trump could also demand new politicized prosecutions. Both the Comey and James indictments were dismissed without prejudice, meaning the government can refile the charges. For Comey, the statute of limitations has already expired, but the government has a six-month grace period to refile an indictment. Of course, to refile would require a new grand jury, a new indictment, and a new court case, and Lindsey Halligan has already proved herself spectacularly incompetent there. Both indictments were already on shaky ground before this. Lindsey Halligan is spectacularly bad at this When Leavitt bragged about how extremely qualified Halligan is, she inadvertently revealed the biggest problem for both Halligan and the administration here. Even if the government got this reversed, they are then stuck with the plethora of other Halligan missteps that would warrant dismissal. Put another way, there is no world in which Halligan is “extremely qualified,” and all her actions have made that clear. There’s the wee problem of admitting in court she had not shown the jury the second Comey indictment but presented it to the magistrate judge nonetheless. And then the part where she tried to walk that back a few days later, saying the full grand jury totally did approve the second indictment. The 1,287,923 defects in the Comey case ... so far Liz Dye · Oct 15 Read full story There’s also Comey’s motion for a bill of particulars — essentially that the government is obliged to provide the defendant with detailed information justifying the charges against them. Since Comey’s indictment ran a slim two pages and had no details at all, it isn’t absurd to think he could prevail. Cracking open the government’s justification for charging him is likely to show that there is nothing there. Let’s not forget Comey’s motion to unseal those grand jury materials that the government very much does not want him to see. The magistrate judge in that case has already ruled that Halligan made “fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the grand jury process.” There’s also the issue of whether Comey could prove that he was selectively and/or vindictively prosecuted. This is usually an incredibly high bar to clear, but when the president of the United States posts on social media that you should be prosecuted and that he’s going to swap in Halligan to make sure it happens, Comey might prevail. Trump posts his Watergate tapes Lisa Needham · Sep 23 Read full story Halligan is in the same boat with respect to the Letitia James case. Before the indictment was dismissed, James had motions pending for dismissal based on selective and vindictive prosecution and outrageous government conduct. She also had a motion for disclosure of grand jury records pending, which might have forced the government to show how Halligan somehow obtained an indictment from a grand jury empaneled in Alexandra after presenting evidence to a different grand jury in Norfolk. It isn’t clear how things would unfold in terms of those existing motions, as they are basically moot in light of the dismissal based on Halligan’s unlawful appointment. It seems likely, however, that if the government gets this reversed, Halligan is stuck with all those same issues. But what if the government did cut Halligan loose? Could that salvage things? Good lawyers won’t touch bogus indictments In theory, Trump could nominate someone actually qualified to be the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, have that person be confirmed by the Senate, and then bring new indictments. The problem there is that all reputable prosecutors refused to touch both the Comey and James cases. The Venn diagram of capable, confirmable US attorney candidates and people willing to bring spurious indictments likely shows no overlap. Even if Trump could convince someone to bring new indictments, it’s a career-ending move. Sure, you might get some approval and glory from Trump for pursuing a sham prosecution, but good luck finding a job after that. Actual prosecutors are not fans of sham prosecutions because they can expose them to sanctions for prosecutorial misconduct and ethics complaints. That’s fine for Halligan, who clearly has no interest in being a lawyer aside from the opportunity to help Trump wreak vengeance. If she’s dinged with some sort of consequences, she’ll just get some other administration job or other right-wing sinecure. But if you are a lawyer who wants to continue practicing, sanctions and ethics complaints kinda wreck the vibe. So now, we wait. It won’t take long for these cases to be appealed. You can also expect that the administration will keep pushing to find new and different ways to criminally charge both Comey and James if they can’t make these indictments stick. But for today, Lindsey Halligan is out of a job, and Comey and James aren’t facing charges, and that’s a reason to celebrate by pointing and laughing at the sheer incompetence on display here.