This is one of Trump’s favorite rhetorical tics —the conjuring up of a mythical community (“people are saying”) that agrees wholeheartedly with some highly questionable assertion. Who are these people who were surprised by Putin’s lies and obfuscations about the war?

During his first term in 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump took bold action that many had considered unthinkable at the time: He approved the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, which was fighting a low-intensity war against Russian invaders and Russia-backed separatists,