Tag: Vladimir Putin

Even Fox News hosts were aghast after Trump’s summit with Putin

The following article by Alex Horton was posted on the Washington Post website July 17, 2018:

After President Trump cast doubt on U.S. intelligence findings on Russia’s election meddling, network news anchors were flabbergasted, outraged and disgusted. (Jenny Starrs /The Washington Post)

President Trump’s performance at Monday’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin was “disgusting” and “wrong,” Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto said.

Trump’s acceptance of Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election was “lame,” Fox News anchor Brit Hume said.

Trump “threw the United States under the bus” in Helsinki, Fox News reporter John Roberts said.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

In battle for nonverbal dominance at U.S.-Russia summit, Putin was the clear winner, experts say

The following article by William Wan was posted on the Washington Post website July 17, 2018:

At their summit in Helsinki on July 16, President Trump appeared to wink at Russian President Vladimir Putin at least twice. (Jenny Starrs /The Washington Post)

Carrie Keating was almost slack-jawed with amazement by the end of President Trump’s news conference with Russian leader Vladimir Putin Monday. Keating has studied the nonverbal gestures of politicians for three decades, but she found the performance between the two men on the stage nothing short of incredible.

“Whoever made the arrangements, they so clearly favored Putin. You saw him do almost every dominant behavior you could stage in social science lab study,” said Keating, a psychology professor who studies charisma and leadership at Colgate University.

Keating quickly ticked off more than a dozen nonverbal assertions of dominance by Putin — including Putin’s agile hop onto the podium (vs. Trump’s lumbering walk), Putin’s animated gestures and the way he often disregarded the audience when speaking.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

The growing Trump-Putin kompromat question

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website July 17, 2018:

At their summit in Helsinki on July 16, President Trump appeared to wink at Russian President Vladimir Putin at least twice. (Jenny Starrs /The Washington Post)

There was a time when the Steele dossier’s alleged, lewd tape of Donald Trump in a Moscow hotel room was Something We Didn’t Talk About. Then James B. Comey made it not-so-taboo.

Now the broader idea that Russia has compromising information, or kompromat, on Trump has moved even more to the forefront. And it’s all thanks to Trump’s decision to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin — and then practically bow to him.

The thing about Trump’s posture toward Putin isn’t just that it’s highly controversial and questionable given Russia’s 2016 election interference; it’s also totally counter to Trump’s brand. This is the guy who wrote the “Art of the Deal” and, just days before his meeting with Putin, was wrecking shop at a NATO summit in hopes of getting fellow members to kick in more for the common defense.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

Trump criticizes media amid growing criticism of his handling of Putin

The following article by Brett Samuels was posted on the Hill website July 17, 2018:

Faced with growing bipartisan criticism of his performance at a summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, President Trump on Tuesday blamed the media for unfair coverage of the meeting.

In a series of tweets, Trump blasted the media and touted the economy in response to a day of negative coverage about the summit, where the U.S. president appeared to take Putin’s word that Russia didn’t interfere in the 2016 election over the findings of his own intelligence agencies.

“While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump tweeted.

“Sadly, it is not being reported that way – the Fake News is going Crazy!” he added.

View the complete article on the Hill website here.

Trump’s Treachery Makes Republicans ‘Sad’ When They Should Be Mad

The following article by Joe Conason was posted on the National Memo website July 16, 2018:

Credit: Yuri Kadobnova, AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s performance in Helsinki on Monday morning was certainly historic. On no other occasion since the founding of this country has an American president publicly demonstrated that he is a witting agent of a hostile foreign power — even as that country’s authoritarian ruler smirked beside him.

Standing at the podium with Vladimir Putin, Trump brazenly endorsed the Russian president’s denial of Kremlin interference in the 2016 presidential election. Only three days after his own appointees in the Justice Department announced charges against a dozen Russian agents, ratifying the long-held conclusions of US agencies, he told the assembled world media that he considered Putin’s word as good as  the counsel of his own intelligence chiefs.

He did nothing but genuflect to Putin during their joint press conference, meekly saying that he credited the Russian’s “strong and powerful denial” of interfering in the US election and that he “didn’t see any reason why they would.” Of course he personifies that reason, having spent the past year doing Kremlin dirty work against NATO, the European Union, and American institutions. He even praised Putin’s absurd “offer” to let the Russians investigate their own crimes against the United States.

View the complete article on the National Memo website here.

Fox News’s Chris Wallace gives Putin the grilling Trump won’t

NOTE: We typically don’t post articles about FOX News, but this one is telling.

The following article by Aaron Blake was posted on the Washington Post website July 16, 2018:

After his summit with President Trump on July 16, Russian President Putin sat down for a Fox News interview with journalist Chris Wallace. Here’s what he said. (Melissa Macaya /The Washington Post)

President Trump refuses to press Vladimir Putin on the questions pretty much every official in American government thinks he should. Luckily, there’s Fox News’s Chris Wallace.

The host on Trump’s favorite cable channel jousted ably with the Russian president — despite the use of interpreters — in an interview airing Monday night. He pressed Putin on the questions Trump has played off, including during Monday’s news conference with Putin in Helsinki. The interview turned heated at points, with Wallace clearly frustrated by Putin’s trademark filibustering and Putin clearly frustrated by a journalist actually challenging him.

Perhaps the most notable exchange came toward the end, when Wallace probed Putin on why many of his critics wind up dead or near death. The most recent high-profile example of this is Sergei Skripal in Britain, an attack for which the Trump administration officially holds Russia responsible but Trump himself seems to view as an obstacle to making friends.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.

The facts missing from Trump and Putin’s news conference

The following article by Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly was posted on the Washington Post website July 16, 2018:

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin echoed each other and reiterated falsehoods in a news conference following their meeting on July 16. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)

President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia made a series of questionable claims at a news conference following their summit meeting in Helsinki on July 16.

Trump was asked whether he believed the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the presidential election in 2016, or whether he believed Putin’s denials. Remarkably, Trump said he had “confidence in both parties.”

This prompted a statement from Daniel Coats, the president’s director of national intelligence. “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy,” Coats said.

View the complete post on the Washington Post website here.

8 Suspect Claims From the Trump-Putin News Conference

The following article by Linda Qiu was posted on the New York Times website July 16, 2018:

“My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.” — Donald Trump

This is disputed.

Those who accused Russia of seeking to influence the 2016 election include the United States intelligence community, Democratic lawmakers and most Republican lawmakers, technology companies like Google and Facebook, and even top members of Mr. Trump’s administration.

Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, indicted 13 Russians and three companies in February, accusing them of posing as American activists and manipulating the election. On Friday, he charged 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking the Democratic National Committee, the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

View the complete article on the New York Times website here.

Five takeaways from Trump’s jaw-dropping performance with Putin

The following article by Niall Stanage was posted on the Hill website July 16, 2018:

President Trump’s keenly anticipated summit on Monday in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin surpassed all expectations on newsworthiness.

Here are the main takeaways.

A jaw-dropper, even by Trump’s standards

Trump’s news conference with Putin was extraordinary, even by the standards of a president who has embraced chaos and controversy like no recent predecessor.

View the complete article on the Hill website here.

After a stunning news conference, there’s a newly crucial job for the American press

The following article by Margaret Sullivan was posted on the Washington Post website July 16, 2018:

Here are the full remarks and responses to questions from President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a news conference on July 16 in Helsinki. (The Washington Post)

It was press conference as national nightmare, summed up succinctly by the BBC on its home page minutes later with this headline: “Trump Sides With Russia Against FBI.”

And though Monday’s joint Trump-Putin post-summit appearance in Helsinki was a news conference — with some admirably tough questions from two experienced wire-service reporters — it also was a moment in which no media interpretation was really necessary.

Everything was right out there in the open. Believe your eyes and ears.

View the complete article on the Washington Post website here.