Donald Trump is trying to start develop a relationship that will allow for improvement of our currently terrible relations with Russia and with Putin. How would 'lashing out at Putin,' with Putin standing right beside him, have been helpful towards that end? And what would have been achieved by Trump laying into Putin for spying on us and interfering in our elections (which they have been doing for a long time) during a worldwide televised press conference, aside from insulting Putin and creating even more tension that would then later need to be diffused? Trump brought up Russian election interference in his discussions with Putin and Putin stated that that he did. How does playing along with the press in trying to make a scene and create more hostility and conflict between Trump and Putin, and our two countries, help here? Answer: it doesn't. In fact, if causes unnecessary harm to efforts to heal a currently very broken relationship. This was not the time to do more harm, regardless of how much the Democrats and the press wanted that to happen. To be fair, I did not like the amount of focus Trump put on America as the source of the problem here. However, Trump did not directly contradict the intelligence community assessment that Putin interfered in our elections, or that Russia is constantly engaged in cyber-warfare against us, comments to the contrary notwithstanding. Trump did give our intelligence community a butt kicking though, as their conduct has hardly been such as to warrant the unreserved trust of anyone, and they especially do not deserve it from Donald Trump. This may be too subtle of a divide for people who become hysterical at the mention of Donald Trump. As a result, he will likely need to later to clarify his remarks, because it does appear that some more explanation on this topic could be helpful. What Trump did not need to do is in any way feed the narrative that the outcome of our election was actually affected by Russian efforts to interfere, because as has been unanimously stated many times by this same intelligence community of ours, that did not happen. And THAT is what the Democrat left and the press really want here. But they did not get it and it does not appear likely that they ever will.
We already have a thread for your useful idiot. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php?threads/putins-useful-idiot-at-work.279579/page-33#post-11889993 I'm fascinated by the inclination to both decry US intelligence as untrustworthy and put your trust in a man who lies with impunity.
He threw the US intelligent agencies under the bus to "improve" his relationship with Putin. He could have walked the line much better but instead he turned it into a rip Hillary event like he is talking to his supporters at a rally. He has zero nuance and shouldn't be allowed to hold sharp objects.
I do not post here very often, because of the thoughtless, trolling, hostile and intolerant responses that seems to be the norm from most posters in this forum. Have you guys noticed how things are slowing down and getting stale in here? This is the reason why. I will not respond back to any trolling, thoughtless, purely antagonistic comments. Just FYI.
It's as if there might be some vast amount of intellectual and rhetorical room between "lashing" and "accommodating." Whodathunk? Would have taken at least medium-sized guts (or cajones, if you prefer) to stand next to Putie and say something like... "Respectfully, I disagree with President Putin. I trust my many intelligence agencies, and now we have a US grand jury finding enough evidence to indict these 12 Russians. So President Putin and I will have to navigate this disagreement and get other work done where we can. But I have to make it clear to him and the world: we won't tolerate election meddling, whether or not someone denies the evidence we uncover. There have to be and will be consequences."
So why didn't he do just that? What possible excuse is there for not doing at least that much? Well said, B-Bob.
Wow, the difference between B-Bob's suggested statement and the position the OP agrees with what trump said. Wish B-Bob was advising the president. Heck, I wish B-Bob was President.
I would have liked to have seen him handle that better too. However, lashing out at Putin during the press conference, which is what the Democrat left, the press and the media led lynch mob that they are promoting is clamoring for, would have been beyond stupid. Trump should not have done that and he should be commended for refraining from doing so in that particular environment. The Russians have been our adversaries for many years, and they still are. We need to address this cyber-warfare with Russia and China especially, perhaps in a similar manner that we have addressed nuclear arms control. While we cannot put the cyber-genie back in the bottle, we can take steps to try to mitigate this HUGE problem, and hopefully the election interference issue at the same time. Of course for our adversaries to stand down their attacks against us in this realm, we are surely going to have to be willing to respond in kind, which I cannot imagine that our intelligence services will think is a very good idea. It is a difficult problem.
Others have already said it. But what he needed to do was say that the indictments show which Russians did it, where they were operating from, and what malware they used to do it. It's all in the indictments. So of course he believes the best intelligence groups in the world that we have in the United States. He could say that he would like nothing more than to have better relations with Putin and Russia, but he knows that they tried to interfere in our democracy before and we won't allow it to happen again. The question was tossed up there for him to say it, and he backed down. He couldn't do it. No improvement in relationship is worth abandoning the United States agencies working hard to protect our democracy while cozying up to the Russian dictator that attacked our democracy.
I think that's the problem with conservatives. Everything is within the extremities You either lash out or bend over. Everything is in the paradigm of "worst" or "best". There is no nuance. No grey. No middle ground. No onae askedTrump to "lash out". What we do ask of our president is not to believe a foreign president who's foreign interests are in direct contradiction to our own over our own intellegence agencies. We ask of him to speak in a calm collective manner to Putin that if this is done again, we will have a harsher strangleholding of your oligarchs' assets. Not "I have no reason not to believe Putin".
So you believe that Vladimir Putin is going to extradite Russian intelligence officers, indicted in the United States - which has no jurisdiction in Russia - for doing their jobs as instructed? Do you believe we will (or should) extradite CIA intelligence officers to Russia for doing their jobs against Russia, as instructed? Who in their right minds would ever work for the CIA again if we started doing that? Would you? Also, we should not tolerate election meddling. That being said, our moral credibility on that subject is weak at best, as we also engage in election tampering, including in Russian elections. In fact, it is highly likely that the Russian interference in our elections in 2016 was part of the consequences of our interference in the Russian elections in 2012. Here is a link to a story about that: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-putin-hillary-clinton-russia
It isn't the democratic left and the press. It is Trump's own appointed head of intelligence, other Republicans, other former CIA and FBI agents and leaders. In the end Russia doesn't have much to offer us. Their economy is pure crap. They aren't big trading partners with us. They are behind UAE, and Chile. We don't need them. It would be great to have better relations with them but they need us far more than we need them. We certainly don't need them enough to throw our guys who are out there risking their lives defending our nation in the intelligence game under the bus.
You know, Deck, the world is asking that now. FoxNews is even asking this now. The possible answers aren't pretty. The best possibility for 45 and his bilge-slurpers is that he is simply hard-headed and cannot accept that Russia helped him get elected -- he'll go so far to refute the idea that he is willing to look compromised (if he even comprehends how compromised he looks.) All other possibilities are pretty ugly, TBH. They involve a compromised president. It's hard to figure out another option for his behavior with all our allies and then this crap today.
Supporting opposition parties isn't a cyber attack on a democratic process. Stop trying to pretend like they are anywhere close to being equal.
Yep. This thread is a weak attempt to re-frame the issue at hand regarding Trump's behavior towards Putin. There is already a thread for this discussion.
Funny how Democrats now agreeing with warmongering McCain and Graham. This is how you lose all your credibility.
