thanks everybody for joining me to discuss a very very serious issue yesterday we witnessed an extremely sad moment in American history we saw the president of the United States aligning himself with the dictator of Russia Vladimir Putin to undermine the independence of Ukraine and its democracy let's be clear Trump is showing us that he sees one of the wor world's most brutal dictators as his friend and our longtime Democratic allies in Europe as his enemies he wants a world that is safe for authoritarians and oligarchs but extremely dangerous for democracies it will not surprise you
when I tell you that Trump is lying as he so often does yesterday Trump said that Ukraine started the war that's not true Russia invaded Ukraine Twice first in 2014 then again in 2022 right now Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine since Putin's horrific Invasion over 1 million people have been killed or injured every single day Russia continues to rain down hundreds of missiles and drones on Ukrainian cities Putin's forces have massacred civilians and kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children bringing them back to Russian re-education camps these atrocities led the international criminal court to issue an
arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 as a war criminal a war criminal further Trump called Ukrainian president zalinski a dictator that's not true either zalinski won 75% of the vote in free elections in fact his approval rating is higher than Trump's in the midst of a brutal War a brutal War Ukraine's Parliament continues to function and free and unfed political debate takes place Trump claimed that our European allies have done little to support Ukraine in its fight against Putin's Invasion he said the United States has contributed three times more than Europe but that's another lie
in fact Europe has provided more Aid to Ukraine than the United States but it's not just that Trump is lying again that's not new it's what this all reveals about where he wants to take our country and in fact the entire world Trump is coing up to Vladimir Putin so who is Putin and what kind of world does he want to build Putin is a dictator who crushed Russia's movement toward democracy after to the end of the Cold War Russia holds sham elections every 6 years where Putin wins 90% of the vote and authorities don't
even try to hide their ballot stuffing there is no freedom of speech or free media in Putin's Russia protests are violently suppressed tens of thousands of people are in prisoned for protesting Russia's invasion of Ukraine political dissidents are harassed or thrown into jail the bravest people like Alexi nalni are killed outright hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled Putin's brutal regime since his invasion of Ukraine but Putin has maintained control in his country by offering Russia's oligarchs a simple deal if you give me absolute power I'll let you steal as much as you want from
the Russian people and that's why in a country where many are struggling economically Russian oligarchs have stashed trillions of dollars in offshore tax accounts that is the Russian leader that Trump admires that is the Russian oligarchy that he supports but that is not not the perspective of the American people we know and we are proud of the fact that the United States of America is the longest standing democracy in the world we know that many hundreds of thousands of Brave Americans over the years have fought and died to defend democracy we also know that our
allies in the world are those countries that believe in democracy not auth authoritarianism in this critical moment in our history I hope that every American regardless of political perspective will stand tall and say yes to democracy no to oligarchy and no to authoritarianism thank you very much
