Editors’ Blog

There are a few points I disagree with here. And I think — albeit perhaps indirectly — Joe Biden is very much part of these negotiations, for just the reason TPM Reader PT says: What Russia needs most is relief from sanctions and those are not under the Ukrainian government’s control. There is also a lot of broken glass that won’t be fixed even if all the sanctions were rescinded immediately. Having said all this, if the Ukrainian government said ‘hey we have an agreement that’s good for our country. We need you to drop the sanctions to make it happen,’ I think we’d be hard pressed to say, ‘Sorry, but we’re still too pissed about this.’ And yet the nature of Putin’s government, the depth of its revisionism and more, seems much more menacing than it did a month ago. There’s really no winding back to the clock to December 2021.

Here’s TPM Reader PT

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: The person who’s not involved in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and who ought to be, is Joe Biden.

I say this because a big part of what Russia is going to want out of a settlement with Ukraine is the removal of economic sanctions, which is not subject to Ukraine’s control. Ultimately it’s the free world that Russia needs to convince to relax those sanctions. At this point, Joe Biden is the undisputed leader of the free world. Thus it’s Biden that Putin needs to work with on this.

I’m making my way through your emails, which I thank you for — both for their content and the thoughtfulness you have taken in writing them. This one from TPM Reader AH is idiosyncratic but one thing AH said really resonated with me: “If the goal of journalism is to make the reader less confused, then TPM’s mode of existence contributes to that mission as much as the reporting in the articles.” There are many goals of journalism but it’s difficult for me to think of many that are more important. Indeed, a number of you have told us that what keeps you coming back to TPM is finding that the new big story or crises don’t come as big surprises to you because our journalism and analysis have anticipated them.

From TPM Reader AH …

The domestic U.S. political moment is bound up around the fact that there is near universal support for Ukraine and opposition and antipathy for Russia. And yet, the leader of the Republican Party has been a consistent and obsequious supporter of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin for the last seven years and even up until this month. Indeed, so much that he actually worked with Putin to blackmail the current Ukrainian President who is now the recipient of worldwide and fairly deserved plaudits. I mean, he literally got impeached over it!

Even Trump himself is now rushing to reposition himself from what he was saying only a couple weeks ago when he praised Putin’s genius for annexing Ukrainian territory. In a new interview in The Washington Examiner he says that this new Putin is definitely different from the old Putin who — maybe as recently as two weeks ago? — was so awesome. “I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

From the Examiner …

“I’m surprised — I’m surprised. I thought he was negotiating when he sent his troops to the border. I thought he was negotiating,” Trump told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday evening during a wide-ranging telephone interview from Mar-a-Lago, his private social club and political headquarters in Palm Beach, Florida. “I thought it was a tough way to negotiate but a smart way to negotiate.”

“I figured he was going to make a good deal like everybody else does with the United States and the other people they tend to deal with — you know, like every trade deal. We’ve never made a good trade deal until I came along,” Trump added.“And then he went in — and I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed. It’s a very sad thing for the world. He’s very much changed.”

Thank you to everyone who has joined us so far in this year’s annual membership drive. We just added our hundredth new member for the drive this morning. So we’re off to a solid start for day one. If you’re a new or returning member, thank you! If you’re considering membership, please consider making today the day. Just click right here. It’s very important for our organization. We try to keep reminders and pushing as limited as possible. But don’t let that make you think it’s not really important, critical, to our operation. You can read my broader pitch here in yesterday’s kick off post.

Also thank you for all the thoughtful and insightful responses to the two questions I asked yesterday of existing members. More soon on that front.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says Ukraine and Russia are now discussing “concrete formulations, that are close to agreement.” He says that potential agreement is on the basis of a Ukrainian proposal of neutrality on the model on Sweden or Austria, in which Ukraine forswears NATO membership but has its own military and independent foreign policy and is free to seek EU membership and whatever other ties with other countries it wants. This seems in line with what I mentioned yesterday that President Zelensky appears to have been telegraphing. He’s made a series of statements in recent days saying he’s soured on NATO, that NATO’s never going to accept Ukraine, etc. That may be true as a prognostication and I’m sure he’s not happy about it. But the logic of saying it seems aimed at softening the ground for including non-membership as part of a peace settlement. Take it off the table yourself, accept it through your own agency rather than as a diktat. This part about Zelensky is my interpretation. But I’m pretty confident this is correct. I also suspect these negotiations may be much closer to fruition than people are thinking.

A few other points.

☀️ I will not rain on this bipartisan parade.

Let me share a few observations on the situation in Ukraine. I’ll put most of this under the fold since I really want you to read the posts below about our membership drive. Please sign up!

Hey, a big thank you to the new members who’ve signed up so far. We really appreciate it. If you’ve been considering becoming a member, please make today the day. Just click right here. And thank you so much for your emails answering my questions below. If you haven’t had a chance to read our drive launch post I’d truly be in your debt if you’d take a moment to read it. It’s just below this post or you can read it by clicking here.

(To all the members who wrote such thoughtful replies to the questions below: seriously, thank you. I’m going to be reading through all of them personally. It will take me a while as I’m trying to work several stories too. But I will be making my way through them all. Some will be published and all will figure into our planning and internal discussions. Seriously, thanks.)

Okay, enough warnings and preparation. Today we launch our annual TPM membership drive. Even if you are a member, I would greatly appreciate if you would give this a read. It’s really important. If you’re not a member or if you’re a lapsed member, would you consider making today the day you join us? A basic Prime membership is really cheap. Just $5.99 a month and a bit less if you sign up for an annual membership. You’ll barely miss that cash and in exchange you’ll get access to everything we publish, a cleaner and less cluttered reading experience and a lot more. But at least as important is that your membership fee — along with those of over 33,000 other TPM members — make this operation possible and sustainable. This isn’t just chatter and words. We’re not owned by a big corporation or funded by some foundation. It’s not one revenue source. The overwhelming percentage of the funding that pays for the salaries, health insurance, rent, web hosting and everything else comes from those membership fees. (Like over 80%.) And we really need a chunk more of the people who regularly visit the site to become members. It’s really important. Are you convinced? Just click right here to sign up.

Over the coming days, along with bringing you the latest on the big land war in Europe, the hopefully subsiding global pandemic and the struggle to preserve democracy in the United States, I’m going to be telling you some of our plans for the near and long term here at TPM, how we plan to expand and deepen the way we bring you the news every day. For members and non-members alike, I hope you’ll join me for that discussion.

For now, I have an ask of members too. Why do you read TPM? And more specifically, what do you get from TPM that you don’t get from other news sources? This might sound like we’re fishing for compliments. And in a way we are. I’m asking Readers and Members to write in with their answer to these questions and I hope to publish some of them as part of our pitch for others to join. But it’s not only that. It’s also audience research. This drive is also combined with a number of projects and efforts this year to improve and evolve the site. (There’s no standing still in digital news. You’re either busy being born or busy dying.) And to do that we need to be in constant dialogue with our Readers. We do that in a lot of ways every day. But here I want to do it in a focused and concentrated way.

As a digital native news organization, we’ve always approached what we do and viewed ourselves as a news operation that is part of an ecosystem of sources where you get your news. This isn’t just humility (yes, they probably do go to other news websites sometimes…) It’s a way of thinking about the practice of journalism as one that is in relationship to other news organizations that operate in different ways, with different perspectives, with more long or short term focuses. So as we figure out how to evolve in response to the ever-evolving news environment, it’s critical that we understand where we fit into the mix for our current Readers.

So, that’s our to do list for today. Not a member? Seriously, can you sign up today? You’ll make about twenty of us really happy and at least one of us a bit relieved. If you are a member, can you drop me a line answering those two questions above? Just send it to talk at talkingpointsmemo dot com with the subject line “Why TPM?”

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Former long-shot presidential candidate and congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is just the latest U.S. politician to seize on debunked, Kremlin-backed conspiracy theories about the supposed existence of U.S.-run bioweapon research labs in Ukraine.

But she’s the first high-profile Democrat to do so.

What started as an InfoWars talking point has been embraced by the Russian and Chinese state media and has morphed in recent days into a full blown right-wing effort to place the blame for President Putin’s deadly war on Ukraine squarely on the shoulders of the U.S. right’s usual cast of enemies, including President Biden and, of course, Anthony Fauci. Kate Riga digs into the madness here.