Nickolai

By S.V. Date

Just two years after working to put Donald Trump in the White House, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is now getting help from Trump to achieve foreign policy objectives that Russia has sought for years.Trump has loudly criticized the NATO military alliance as unduly burdensome for the United States. He has started a trade war with many of those same allies. And on his way to the G-7 summit of industrialized democracies Friday morning, he suggested that those nations re-admit Russia to the gathering ― even though Russia continues to occupy part of Ukraine, the reason it was expelled from the group in the first place.“If this were a screenplay, Hollywood would have thrown it out as too ridiculous,” said Tom Nichols, a Russia expert at the Naval War College. “I can’t think of anybody who thinks this is a good idea.”


“Today crystallizes precisely why Putin was so eager to see Trump elected,” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and the National Security Council spokesman under then-President Barack Obama. “For Putin, this is return on his investment, and it’s safe to say that his investment has paid off beyond even his wildest dreams.” On his way from the White House to a Marine helicopter waiting on the South Lawn, Trump told reporters that Putin probably wished that Democrat Hillary Clinton had been elected president rather than him. He has offered this comment many times before, notwithstanding a U.S. intelligence community assessment that Putin interfered in the e******n with the goal of helping Trump win.


“I have been Russia’s worst nightmare,” Trump boasted. “But with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting. Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting? And I would recommend, and it’s up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting. They should be a part of it. You know, whether you like it or not ― and it may not be politically correct ― but we have a world to run. And in the G-7, which used to be the G-8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in. Because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.” Steven Pifer, a U.S. ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton, said to bring Russia back into the G-7 would be to reward Putin’s military aggression. “Russia was booted after it seized and illegally annexed Crimea. It went on to spark a conflict in eastern Ukraine that has k**led more than 10,000. That should not win Moscow an invitation back to the G-8 table,” Pifer said.


Neither the White House nor the National Security Council was willing to elaborate on Trump’s statement Friday. That reluctance makes sense, Nichols said, because Trump’s off-the-cuff remark likely took the rest of the government by surprise. “The president blurts something out, and then the entire foreign policy apparatus has to back up and reverse engineer why it’s not a terrible idea,” he said. “I don’t think this is a policy. I think, like most things in this White House, this is a reaction,” he added, calling it a function of Trump’s need to “win” each week of his reality TV presidency. “What could I do to annoy the G-7? I know! I could bring back Putin, and then at least I would have one friend.”


Trump, despite his frequent claims of “no collusion” with Russia, spent the final month of the p**********l campaign highlighting stolen emails that were damaging to his opponent ― even though U.S. intelligence had already informed him that Russian spy agencies had stolen the emails and were releasing them through WikiLeaks. His son Donald Trump Jr. was in contact with WikiLeaks during those weeks, and in June 2016 he had convened a meeting between top campaign officials and Russians with ties to that nation’s intelligence agencies. Trump Jr. had called the meeting after receiving an offer of material damaging to Clinton. President Trump has also claimed that he hasn’t had business interests in Russia, yet just weeks before v****g began in the 2016 primaries, he was actively seeking Putin’s help for a hotel deal in Moscow.


While Trump has pushed for closer relations with Putin since taking office, he has created rifts between the United States and its traditional allies. He has repeatedly accused NATO countries of c***ting the U.S. by not spending enough on defense ― even though under a 2014 agreement, the countries have a full decade to ramp up their spending to the target level. In recent months, he has antagonized U.S. allies around the world by imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum. Other nations are preparing to raise retaliatory tariffs, leading to fears of a trade war that could hurt the economies of all the parties involved.

billman6 Loc: Top of Texas

Wow, you really know how to spin a tale. Just start at the beginning and tell me how Putin helped Trump get elected please. With proof I apparently have to add. This is truly truly stupid.

Weasel Loc: In the Great State Of Indiana!!

My God Man, Get some help.

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

Hahahahaha..... Hahahahaha...

billman6 Loc: Top of Texas

And another thing, if you will remember Obama allowed the Russians to annex Crimea and did nothing about it. He also allowed them to shoot down a passenger plane and did nothing about it. He allowed them into Georgia and did nothing about it. Allowed the fighting in Ukraine to go on and did nothing about it. Wouldn't even help arm the Ukrainians. Allowed Syria to gas its own people, Drew his f**e red line and did nothing about it. But this is the man your so proud of? Your such a hypocrite.

proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

Thank you!!!!

kankune Loc: Iowa

Hey go easy on obama bill..We all know he was toooooo busy golfing and on million dollar vacations to be bothered with such small fry problems as those.

billman6 Loc: Top of Texas

Well that is true.

truthiness

......
Why does Trump say that he is Russia's worst problem?

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

President Donald J Trump has complete and total control of your every thought... Does your partner know where your mind is while being amorous..

Super Dave Loc: Realville, USA

Rumatoid had a bad case of TDS...

Crayons Loc: St Jo, Texas

Putin doesn't need much help from the Trump...The Klintoons, Podesta, Mueller et'al all gave Putin wh**ever he wanted...And Putin played them demonrats like a fiddle.

patrioticmind

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 08: Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill June 8, 2017 in Washington, DC. Comey said that President Donald Trump pressured him to drop the FBI's investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and demanded Comey's loyalty during the one-on-one meetings he had with president. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Comey: T***p w*n't criticize Putin, even in private

Nikki Haley: I don't get confused
US President Donald Trump (L) chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017. / AFP PHOTO /



President Donald Trump said Friday he's "been Russia's worst nightmare" and he often argues he's tougher than past presidents toward Moscow when rejecting criticism of his oddly deferential approach to Vladimir Putin.

But the t***h is that many modern presidents have adopted a far more adversarial approach than Trump towards the Kremlin, which is accused by US intelligence services of meddling in the 2016 US e******n in an operation that came to favor Trump over noted Russia hawk Hillary Clinton.
While there are hardliners on Russia inside his administration, Trump has often tried to temper their approach, leading critics to question whether there is something to claims that Russia has compromising information on the US leader made in the Steele dossier.
And often, Trump has adopted positions that appear to play into the foreign policy of President Putin's government. His feuding with G7 leaders, for instance, weakens the Western alliance, a core goal of Russian policy and his frequent criticisms of NATO have the same effect.

On Friday, Trump spoke up for another Russian goal, the restoration of Moscow's membership in the industrialized nations club after it was kicked out of the then-G8 in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea.
"I love our country. I have been Russia's worst nightmare. If Hillary got in -- I think Putin is probably going, 'man, I wish Hillary won' because you see what I do," Trump told reporters before heading off the G7 meeting in Quebec.
"But, with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting," he said. "Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting?"
"They should let Russia come back in," he added later.
'No President tougher on Russia'
When asked to explain Trump's frequent praise for Putin, the White House often says that no President has been more aggressive on Russia policy than Trump -- though his rhetoric is often softer than the actions of his own administration.
"He has been tougher on Russia in the first year than Obama was in eight years combined," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in February.
Trump's administration has imposed several sets of sanctions on Russia, allowed the sale of lethal arms to Ukraine and kicked out 60 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. The administration also launched cruise missile attacks against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a key Putin ally -- a step that Barack Obama failed to take.
But Trump has repeatedly rejected the conclusion of US intelligence agencies that Moscow intervened in the 2016 e******n in an effort to help him win and insists that it is smart diplomacy to ease US relations with Russia, which are at their most tense since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And his moves against Moscow pale against those of many of his predecessors.
During the Cold War, American presidents lashed their Soviet counterparts rhetorically, ordered massive military buildups, sponsored covert action campaigns and proxy wars and pursued policies that several times brought the world to the edge of nuclear armageddon.
For 40 years, the organizing principle of US foreign policy was being tough on Russia in a global battle against its C*******t ideology.
Trump's fixation on toughness is not necessarily the best way to judge US-Russia policy anyway. Geopolitical factors and the ebb and flow of tensions, even during the Cold War, meant there were some periods when US presidents did try to forge dialogue with the Kremlin. Trump is not the first president to be accused of not being tough enough on the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation by anti-Russia hawks in Washington.
But history has also shown that hopes of better relations usually get dashed, owing to global politics, the tides of Russian history, and jarring philosophical differences between Washington and Moscow.
Still, even when his national security team has been pursuing traditionally hawkish policies towards Moscow at a time of plunging relations, they've been overshadowed by President Trump's baffling praise for Putin.
And no previous American president has expressed such admiration for the prevailing political system in Moscow, as Trump has in his public appreciation of the strong-arm characteristics of Putinism.
Here's how Trump's "tough" approach to Russia stacks up against his 12 post-war predecessors.
Harry S. Truman
After World War II, Truman's administration, prompted by a famous "long telegram" from a top American diplomat in Moscow George Kennan, concluded that the Soviet Union after World War II was dedicated to threatening the western pillars of capitalism and democracy.
In a speech to Congress, the President laid out the Truman Doctrine, an attempt to halt the spread of c*******m in the Mediterranean region, arguing that "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
That moment came to be seen as the declaration of the Cold War, and was followed up the Marshall Plan, an effort to rebuild devastated Europe to blunt the spread of Soviet-style c*******m. Truman also signed a national security directive managing a massive buildup of US and conventional arms.
In 1950, Truman declared in San Francisco: "If the Soviet Union really wants peace, it can prove it by lifting the Iron Curtain."
Dwight Eisenhower
The death of Joseph Stalin at the start of Eisenhower's presidency offered a window to improve relations with Moscow. But the Soviet crackdown in Hungary in 1956 and the crash of an American U2 spy plane over Russia in 1960 finally snuffed out attempts to ease tensions failed when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev stormed out of a summit with Eisenhower in Paris. The President returned home with the warning, "It was a mystery and remains a mystery as to why at this particular moment, the Soviets chose so to distort and overplay the U2 incident that they obviously wanted no talks of any kind."
John F. Kennedy
When the Soviet Union started to build missile installations in Cuba, Kennedy was presented with a crisis that almost boiled over into nuclear war.
"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union," Kennedy said, in his own version of being tough on Russia.
Over 13 days of tension in October 1962, Kennedy wrestled with how to show the Soviets the move was unacceptable while at the same time offering Khrushchev a way out as he mulled a US naval blockade or strikes on Cuba.
Eventually, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, partly in return for a secret agreement by Kennedy to take US missiles out of Turkey and one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War was defused.
Lyndon Johnson
Johnson's early presidency was dev**ed to domestic goals before his administration became consumed by the Vietnam War. Yet Johnson's goals for his disastrous escalation of that conflict was seen through a Cold War prism as it was motivated by the desire to check the spread of c*******m across Asia.
Richard Nixon
Nixon came to office with a reputation as a scourge of c*******m. His version of getting tough on the Kremlin was to engage a rival power -- China -- in a policy of "triangulation" that prompted Moscow to seek better relations with Washington to avoid being left behind. Nixon developed the policy of detente -- designed to ease tensions with the Soviet Union that produced several major arms control agreements.
Gerald Ford
During his short presidency, Ford signed the Helsinki accords with Moscow that cemented the post-World War II territorial status quo in Europe. Though the accords are not a treaty, Ford managed to get the Soviet Union to reluctantly concede to language about the need to respect human rights.
Jimmy Carter
Nowadays, Carter is often portrayed as a weak president. But, his national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was deeply suspicious of the Soviet Union and Carter developed a hawkish policy towards Moscow. He initiated a massive five-year defense buildup and cut grain sales to the Soviet Union following its invasion of Afghanistan, all while leading a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
"It is a deliberate effort by a powerful, atheistic government to subjugate an independent Islamic people," Carter said of the invasion. "A Soviet-occupied Afghanistan threatens both Iran and Pakistan and is a stepping stone to possible control over much of the world's oil supplies"
Ronald Reagan
No president was as scathing about the Soviet Union as Reagan, who like Nixon had a decades-long record of opposition to c*******m before winning the White House. He branded the Soviet Union an "evil empire," ordered a massive US military buildup, stationed nuclear missiles on European soil and envisaged a "Star Wars" missile defense shield to de-fang the Soviet nuclear arsenal.
In one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War, in 1983, US-Moscow tensions nearly led to the two rivals blundering into nuclear war. But despite his toughness, Reagan also was ready to take a risk on dialogue, recognizing in new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a partner -- even though many of his hawkish staff members disagreed with him. Still, Reagan never lost his tough edge even after meeting Gorbachev to negotiate arms reductions. In 1987, he traveled to the Brandenburg Gate in divided Berlin.
"Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Reagan declared in his most famous speech.
George H.W. Bush
The fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that Bush was the first president to adopt a new role with Moscow. The requirement was not for toughness, but for forbearance and encouragement in the hope that a new democratic system could take root.
Some Republican hawks accused Bush of not being tough enough: when the Soviet Union fell he refused to celebrate the West's historic triumph, worrying that gloating could embolden hardliners in Russia and reverse the tide of change. In retrospect, Bush's piloting of the Cold War to a soft landing is one of his greatest legacy achievements and shows that at times toughness from Washington is not the most effective policy.
Bill Clinton
Clinton's historic task in US-Russia relations was to try to cement a fragile market system in Russia and he backed the loan of billions of dollars in International Monetary (IMF) funds to the government of Russian President Boris Yeltsin while backing programs to safeguard the Soviet Empire's scattered nuclear arsenal. Still, Clinton's policy of NATO enlargement, bringing in former Warsaw Pact states to the West was, in retrospect, a tough move. It's seen within Russia as t

Big Kahuna

Sit back, relax, quit talking bs and watch the maestro (President Trump) at work. All the things that the dems projected into Trump have utterly failed. Examples: the economy will collapse, the stock market will crater, jobs will leave, unemployment will increase, a trade war will ruin us, a nuclear war with N. Korea is imminent, Trump will be impeached, Trump is r****t (false), Trump h**es women (hires more women for top positions than ovommit and hitlary put together), Trump is old and sick ( he only needs 3 hours of sleep and never naps and outworks a 30 year old), the sky is falling, the world will come to an end, and on and on it goes. NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENNED AND YOUR SIDE IS FREAKING OUT AND YOUR SIDE NEVER APOLOGIZES FOR BEING ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!!