Tag: Vladimir Putin
Trump’s chaos in Syria gets praise from Putin — and no one else
Trump’s sudden announcement on Syria confused American agencies and leaders. But Vladimir Putin praised it loudly.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Trump announced that America would be withdrawing the 2,000 troops in Syria. The major foreign policy initiative came as a surprise to both the Department of Defense and the State Department, the two departments who would be tasked with executing Trump’s whims.
Defending his latest amateurish blunder on foreign policy, Trump tweeted, “Russia, Iran, Syria & many others are not happy about the U.S. leaving, despite what the Fake News says.”
But Putin does like it. A lot. Speaking to reporters, the Russian leader said Trump had made “the right decision,” and went on to slam the actions of American soldiers on the ground in the region.
View the complete December 20 article by Oliver Willis on the ShareBlue.com website here.
Mueller Exposes Putin’s Hold Over Trump
Just over a week ago, on Friday December 7, the Special Counsel’s Office headed by Robert Mueller for the first time outlined in a court filing the grand narrative of the Russia Probe. The court filing revealed what many had long suspected, that Trump and his family had used, or tried to use, his presidential candidacy, and then his presidency, to enhance their own wealth.
We also learned finally what hold Russian President Vladimir Putin has over Trump. It’s not as some suspected, a money laundering episode from more than a decade ago. It was something that happened in real time during the presidential election itself. Thus, Trump himself repeatedly stated since entering the presidential race in June 2015 that he had no business in Russia and no interactions with representatives of Russia. It now turns out that Putin knew what the American people didn’t, namely that Donald Trump was throughout the 2016 presidential primary campaign secretly negotiating to build a huge and lucrative hotel in Moscow, which required the personal support of Vladimir Putin. The fact that Putin knew about Trump’s secret dealings, while the American people didn’t, meant that if Trump didn’t do what Russia wanted, Russia could expose Trump’s lies and so bring him down.
The filing revealed that Mueller’s Office is now investigating the hypothesis that Donald Trump, his campaign, his organization and his associates participated in a massive election fraud, through five interlocking conspiracies—arguably the worst set of crimes against the United States in its history.
View the complete December 16 article by Steve Denning on the Forbes website here.
Trump attacks the Emmy Awards more often than he criticizes Putin
Trump’s prolific tweeting shows he is more willing to attack television shows and American patriots than Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Since moving into the Oval Office, Trump has used his Twitter account to attack Americans like John McCain and Dianne Feinstein way more often than his pal Vladimir Putin.
According to a comprehensive analysis by the New York Times, Trump has attacked the FBI 24 times as often as Putin, and his own Department of Justice 8 times as often.
The Times catalogued 547 people, places, or things Trump has insulted on Twitter since he first announced his campaign for president.
View the complete November 21 article by Dan Desai Martin on the ShareBlue.com website here.
Trump changes plans to meet with Putin after Putin
Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin the week after midterm elections — a major change in plans that came after Putin called for it.
Russian and U.S. officials announced this week that Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Nov. 11, the week after midterm elections and four months after the two world leaders met at the disastrous Helsinki summit.
The announcement, which came while national security adviser John Bolton was in Moscow for talks with Russian officials, marks a sharp reversal from the Trump administration’s previous position on a bilateral meeting between the two men.
In July, Bolton announced that the next meeting between Trump and the Russian president would be postponed until 2019, citing the Russia investigation as his rationale for the delay.
View the complete October 25 article by Caroline Orr on the ShareBlue.com website here.
Putin touts downfall of US as a global leader: ‘It’s almost done’
Putin used his annual public address to celebrate America’s fading global influence under the Trump administration.
In his annual public address before the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed that America’s global influence has come to end — a development he attributed in large part to Trump’s presidency.
Speaking about the position of the U.S. on the global stage, Putin celebrated the waning influence of what he described as America’s “monopoly” on power, saying it would give Russia the ability to exert more influence in the world.
“Empires often think they can make some little mistakes. Because they’re so powerful,” Putin said, according to the Financial Times. ”But when the number of these mistakes keeps growing, it reaches a level they cannot sustain.”
View the complete October 19 article on the ShareBlue.com website here.
On Fox News, Robert Mueller is often a bigger bogeyman than Vladimir Putin
The following article by JM Rieger was posted on the Washington Post website August 15, 2018:
Some Fox News pundits now say special counsel Robert S. Mueller III represents a bigger threat to the United States than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Some Fox News pundits now say an ex-Marine Corps officer is more dangerous than an ex-KGB officer. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
When conservative radio host Mark Levin appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” last week to discuss the latest in the Russia investigation, he ended up baffling even some of his most conservative allies.
“Robert Mueller is a greater threat to this republic and the Constitution than anything Vladimir Putin did during the campaign,” Levin said. “And I am no fan of Vladimir Putin.”
While bringing up a basket of old claims about the Mueller investigation, Levin did not say specifically what made Mueller a larger threat than Putin.
White House: Trump won’t meet Putin until next year
The following article by Jordan Fabian was posted on the Hill website July 25, 2018:
President Trump on Wednesday backed away from his plan to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in the fall, citing the special counsel investigation into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.
National security adviser John Bolton said in a statement the next one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin will be “after the first of the year” and following the conclusion of the Russia probe, which he described as a “witch hunt.”
“The president believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year,” Bolton said.
Pompeo faces GOP grilling on Russia, North Korea
The following article by Alexander Bolton was posted on the Hill website July 24, 2018:
Republican and Democratic lawmakers concerned over the uncertainty swirling around President Trump’s foreign and trade policies will press Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for answers Wednesday, but there are doubts about how much he can answer.
Pompeo is scheduled to testify at 3 p.m. before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, an eagerly awaited appearance for lawmakers hungry to know more about Trump’s two-hour private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week in Helsinki.
There are also questions about the status of diplomatic talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and what the administration’s next moves are after pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal in May.
Senators want Pompeo to explain Trump’s persistent criticism of European allies, something they fear has eroded trust within NATO.
How U.S. intelligence agencies can find out what Trump told Putin
The following article by Josh Meyer was posted on the Politico website July 23, 2018:
A top-secret Special Collection Service has extraordinary capabilities to hoover up intel from foreign adversaries.
President Donald Trump’s insistence on holding a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin hobbled U.S. intelligence agencies that would usually get an intimate look at such a sit-down, but American spies still have extraordinary capabilities to piece together what was discussed.
That’s in large part due to the existence of a top-secret U.S. collection service that specializes in tapping adversaries’ communications on the fly, including those of Putin’s entourage at last week’s summit in Helsinki.
Privately, sources familiar with U.S. intelligence capabilities expressed confidence that the so-called Special Collection Service scooped up not only Putin’s readout of the two-hour meeting, but what the Kremlin’s top spymasters really think about it — and how they’re spinning it to their foreign counterparts.