By Donald H. Harrison in San Diego
INTERNATIONAL
ABC television news reported that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has questioned Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s legitimacy to hold office as Ukraine’s President. In which case, it would be pointless to sign a peace agreement with him, Putin said.
He told a news conference on Thursday in Kyrgystan that any deal with Ukraine must include the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Russian-claimed territory.
“If Ukraine’s troops leave the territory occupied, then military action will stop. If they won’t leave then we will achieve that by armed force,” Putin said. Otherwise, Russia is willing to “fight to the last Ukrainian.”
Meanwhile, controversy attended a report in Bloomberg News that President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff apparently coached a senior aide to Putin on how to pitch U.S. President Donald Trump to accept Russia’s key demands in any peace deal with Ukraine. Bloomberg News published a purported transcript of the Oct. 14 phone call between Witkoff and Yuri Ushakov.
Witkoff suggested that Putin congratulate Trump on reaching a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, and that he respects Trump as a “man of peace.” After that, “it’s going to be a really good call,” said Witkoff. In response to the transcript, Congressman Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) called for Witkoff to be fired, saying the envoy obviously is biased toward Russia instead of being a neutral mediator.
At his news conference Thursday, Putin said the recording of Witkin’s phone call with Ushakov might be “some kind of fake news,” or “maybe they really did eavesdrop … Eavesdropping is illegal in our country. It’s not about us. It’s about the battle of opinions between the collective West and the US over what needs to be done to end the hostilities.”
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Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, said there is a stalemate in Gaza, with Israel unwilling to withdraw its forces unless Hamas disarms, and Hamas refusing to disarm unless Israel withdraws its forces. He added: “At this point in life, [U.S. President Donald] Trump is the only person on earth that has the power to make a difference that will change the lives of tens of millions of people and will do something dramatic that no president before him has been able to do. He has the power now because he can force the Israeli prime minister to do that which he doesn’t want to do, and he can force him to carry on the full implementation of the 20 points [of the Trump Middle East peace plan] and he has the power to use the moderators, the Turks and the Qataris and the Egyptians to force Hamas to disarm which is essential and then he has the power to force the two sides, the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, to start a dialogue for a two-state solution. He has this power and he is the only person that can do it.”
NATIONAL
In the annual Thanksgiving Day tradition. President Trump “pardoned” two turkeys, “Gobble” and “Waddle” before an audience at the Rose Garden of the White House. He mused that the birds might have been called “Chuck” and “Nancy” but then he would not have pardoned them—a reference to his political battles with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California). Later, he turned his sarcasm on Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has been vocal in his opposition to having the National Guard federalized for service in Chicago. Said Trump: “I refuse to talk about the fact that he’s a fat slob. I don’t mention it.”
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The White House released a list of donors to the Transition Team that helped President Donald J. Trump prepare for his second, non-consecutive term of office. Among those listed were Howard Lutnick, now Trump’s secretary of commerce, and Steve Witkoff, who now serves as the President’s special envoy. The report did not indicate how much individual donors contributed, but said the total was slightly more than $14 million, of which $13.7 million was actually spent. Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service president, told The New York Times: “They claimed they were saving taxpayers money but what they were doing was hiding the ball about who is buying the government.”
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Attorney Steven Lieberman, representing nine newspapers including The San Diego Union-Tribune in a lawsuit against Open AI and Microsoft, stated: “OpenAI pays for its chips. It pays for its computers. It pays its programmers. But it steals the raw material for its GAI products—valuable well-written content—from hard-working journalists without payment and without permission.” According to a story by Southern California News Group’s Pat Maio, Lieberman added: “Through this lawsuit, the news plaintiffs seek to make OpenAI pay for what it has taken.”
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.