1. The President is not taking Russia’d side. He is still sending lethal arms to Ukraine to kill Russian soldiers. He is a tactical negotiator and his antics are his negotiating tactics to end the war that has now been going on since 2014, eleven years and with no end in sight without Trump’s intervention.
2. He is not withdrawing from NATO.
3. Civil Service (government) employees should NOT have better job protection or employee benefits than private sector employees. And the government workforce is highly bloated and way overdue for severe downsizing to save taxpayer money. The first to go should be the do-nothing employees who sit on their hands all day and do nothing. It’s high time to stop coddling the government politically connected union thugs obtaining things no private sector business would ever agree to.
4. I agree that tariffs are not helpful and are liable to backfire. I’m hoping, and believe it is reasonable to speculate, that President Trump’s game-plan is to use the threat of them as leverage to obtain terms from other countries more beneficial to the United States before he drops the threat of tariffs on any particular country.