Wrong on Russian Diesel, Mr. President

I’m an American and a supporter of President Trump. I have been from the moment he came down that escalator in New York City and announced his candidacy. From the beginning, I’ve watched him take abuse and wicked assaults on his character and on his person that would never have been launched against anyone else. His courage in the face of those relentless onslaughts, which would have downed literally anyone else in politics, has been breathtaking and inspiring. He’s the only candidate whose opponents’ derangement drove up my support for him with every new excess. I don’t typically give to political campaigns, but I gave to Donald Trump – when the Democrats went more nuts, I sent more money.

I support President Trump on securing our border. I stand with the President on Israel, and in his opposition to the vile antisemitism sweeping through our politics and our culture. I applaud the President’s defense of the rights of the unborn. In those and so many other ways, I am unashamed in my support of President Donald Trump, and I’m MAGA to the core. Love me or hate me, that’s where I stand.

I’ve not liked everything the President has said, and as a Christian, there have been times I wish he had spoken and acted differently. But he was elected to be my president, not my pastor, and if the alternative is the Democrats and their unholy crusade to unmake America, well, I’ll stick with Trump.

Not to get carried away with my own importance – politically, I’m no one – but if the President were to lose someone like me, I’m not sure who he can keep. I say that because tonight, as I lay in bed unable to sleep here in Moldova, just an hour’s drive or so from the Ukrainian border, I am appalled at the action my President has taken on the importation of Russian diesel. Putting money in Putin’s pocket so he can attack and murder more Ukrainian civilians in their beds, just hours from my own, is wrong, Mr. President. It’s a political calculation ahead of the midterms, and it’s a callous, heartless one that I pray you rethink quickly.

I come to Moldova a lot, and America has done so much to help this small but beautiful nation. Its people deserve our support and our prayers. If Ukraine falls, so will Moldova; that’s just a fact. A policy that betrays them and lionizes Putin isn’t just wrongheaded. It is an evil policy, and it will get innocent men, women and children killed. Worse still, at least one senior administration official has pointed the finger at Ukraine. UN Ambassador Mike Waltz went on Fox and pointed to Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries as a reason diesel prices are high. True enough, but so what? It’s one of the few ways Ukraine can hit back at the nation that invaded it. If America were fighting this war, we’d flatten every refinery we could reach.

Putin is a bully. Putin is a thug. He’s the one who started this war, and no amount of equivocation or fatuous guff about who provoked whom can justify his tyranny and murderous campaign of terror in this region. Putin is the only reason this war continues, and the very one who could end it with a word. That’s not on President Zelensky, or the Ukrainian people, or the people of every nation in this part of the world living under threat from this fiend. This war, and the death, mayhem and suffering it is causing, is entirely of Putin’s making – period.

I have prayed for President Trump for years, and I will absolutely continue to do so. I’m sure he will never read this, but if he needs to know, I love him, I pray for him, and I ask God to guide him in what is the hardest job in the world. That’s exactly what makes this so painful: this policy comes from a president I love. He is wrong on this issue, and it’s a fatal error that I pray he remedies at the earliest opportunity. I pray God blesses President Trump, and I pray God blesses America. But I sincerely believe that the policies being pursued toward Ukraine right now are not something God can bless.