The viral exchange that took place in the Oval Office between Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, Donald Trump, and JD Vance marked a very public change in U.S. policy towards Ukraine. Vance insisting Zelenskyy say “Thank you” and Zelenskyy being humiliated in front of a room of journalists were sort of uncomfortable situations to witness. We didn't expect the U.S. policy shift to be so sudden or so crude, but it made one thing clear— the mainstream media's vested interest in prolonging the war in Ukraine. Instead of reporting in favor of diplomacy, most media focused on Trump’s and Vance’s lack of decorum.
Figures like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow were quick to attack Trump for abandoning Ukraine, when the only way to really protect Ukrainian lives is to end the war as soon as possible. Maddow and her counterparts have a major influence over liberal leaning people in the U.S. Every U.S. war has required the media to build public support for it – Ukraine is no different! If Rachel Maddow really cares about Ukrainians and their lives, she would support a ceasefire and negotiations, and platform people who support those ideas.
In the last few days, MSNBC had people like Congressman Gregory Meeks on their programs to talk about Ukraine and Trump’s attempts at diplomacy with Russia. Meeks claimed that Ukraine is winning the war, and that the U.S. is abandoning Ukraine at a critical moment. Is Ukraine winning the war? It is in a far worse position than it was when the U.S. sabotaged negotiations in 2022. Ukraine has lost territory, it has resorted to conscripting old men to fight in its exhausted military, and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dead. Is that how Gregory Meeks defines “winning,” or is MSNBC just letting members of Congress (who take millions from the weapons industry) lie to the American public?
MSNBC had Jeffrey Sachs on…tell them to invite more peacemakers on Maddow’s segment!
One of Maddow’s main talking points in recent weeks has been highlighting actions made by Donald Trump to end the war and implying that the only person those actions help is Putin. While we don’t agree with Trump on anything, and view his pivot on Ukraine as a pivot to focus U.S. foreign policy on China, we do believe that, in order to save lives, the war has to end. Peace activists have been calling for negotiations and end to weapons shipments since the war began. In fact, many of you signed our petition to Donald Trump that included our demand to end weapons shipments to Ukraine in his first 100 days, and earlier this week he paused military aid! That is a huge win!
People can call us Putin apologists all they want, but in twenty years when the world helps clean the undetonated cluster bombs from Ukraine and Russia’s landscape, we will be horrified that so many of them say “Made in the USA.” The amnesia that comes with our constant cycle of wars will have left masses wondering why we had ever sent those weapons in the first place… and why so many media figures had encouraged us to support endless war.
Onwards,
Marcy, Medea, Danaka & The Whole CODEPINK Team
