Social media is ablaze with outrage over Donald Trump’s answer to a question about who he believes regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In short, he said he has confidence in Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats but he believes Putin. Watch:
Asked if he believes US intel agencies or Putin about Russia's interference in the 2016 election, Trump immediately starts pushing debunked DNC & Hillary conspiracy theories.
"I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia, Trump says, affirming he believes Putin's denials. pic.twitter.com/uciAoRxbxA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2018
Let it sink in what Trump told the world. Russia mounted a cyberattack on the U.S. and he still sided with Putin. His rambling, tangential response deflected the question and yet still placed him in defense of Putin’s “strong denial.”
Ronald Reagan is dying many more deaths somewhere today. For an American president to cozy up to a former KGB agent, blame America for our poor relationship, and then to throw U.S. intelligence under the bus is collusion in real time. No need to prove anything covert. In my opinion, it just happened on the world stage.
Some readers may disagree. Let’s discuss.
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I’m inclined to think, besides the fact that Trump is a fool who reduces every relationship to dollars and cents, that Putin spent their closed-door summit reminding Trump that he owes Russian banks much more than he can ever repay, and that there would be dire consequences for Trump and his family if Trump didn’t do what Putin told him to do. Trump spent their joint press conference fawning over Putin in a way that no US President has ever done to any foreign leader, much less a man who wants the West in chaos and has interfered in the elections of several European countries, as well as our own. Trump has made it clear whose side he is on, and needs to be removed from office before he makes our situation worse.
I emailed my two senators and house rep(all three white male GOP) to tell them “Donald Trump today chose Vladimir Putin over the US Intelligence Community. He has broken his oath of office. He needs to be publicly denounced and we need to commence impeachment proceedings immediately. Please choose country over party at this critical time.” Feel free to copy and paste. We need to be heard.
This is because Trump is a coward. Like any internet troll he’ll gleefully attack anyone from behind the safety of his keyboard, but when he comes face-to-face with people he doesn’t have such “courage” to say what he thinks.
I don’t think it’s cowardice. It might not even be that Putin has something on Trump (which seems likely). I think it’s simply that Trump has yet to meet an authoritarian leader he doesn’t get on famously with.
Putin, Xi, Duterte, Erdoğan, even Kim for goodness sake — he admires them all, and he’s not shy about saying so.
For a man to seeks to personally dominate everyone he meets, even his friends and supporters, it’s kind of bizarre behavior. I’m assuming it’s got something to do with his narcissistic personality disorder, but is as though he’s getting some kind of affirmation from these despots that he isn’t getting from anyone else, which is bizarre because he’s the most powerful leader in the world. His ego shouldn’t need any stroking.
Perhaps the key is that he’s discovered that US Constitutional government is far more restrictive, cumbersome, and intransigent than he would like and his unbridled admiration for despots has a green-eyed tint when he looks at their unchecked power and the fear and absolute respect it commands. He already gets a ton of it back in Washington, but it chafes that it’s still not on the same level that Kim or Putin enjoys.
If anywhere, that’s where the cowardice comes in — fortunately. I have absolutely no doubt that if he had dictatorial power, he would wield it, but his lack of competence and willpower prevents him from taking the audacious risks required to take over the US government like Erdoğan did in Turkey.
Still, the love his base has for Putin is nauseating. They were big fans of his long before Trump came along, and I suspect Trump will eventually fare badly in comparison once he’s out of power (hopefully by 2020), because he didn’t deliver on imprisoning political enemies, killing off the free press and “draining the swamp” of liberals, as Putin has done in Russia.
No, Trump has made “anti-russian” comments (on twitter) before. The ones I recall were wrt Syria, but I believe there were others as well.
And it isn’t just with Putin, basically anyone he attacks is done via twitter or when giving a speech in front of a friendly crowd.
Right. The Press and the FBI and the science community are all lying, but Putin is the one telling the truth. U.S. White Evangelicals still supporting Trump are the lone demographic who consistently and wilfully accept his blatant, foolish deception.
Since around 1990, I have been saying that the Republican Party is unfit to govern. I now see that I was being far too kind to the Republicans.
For the remainder of my life, I expect that I shall see the GOP as the party that aided and abetted a traitor. And not merely an American traitor, but a traitor to the entire human race.