Thread: Gingrich: Putin press conference was 'most serious mistake' of Trump's presidency

Gingrich: Putin press conference was 'most serious mistake' of Trump's presidency

By Max Greenwood - 07/16/18 05:45 PM EDT

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), a longtime supporter of President Trump, declared on Monday that Trump's performance at a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin was "the most serious mistake of his presidency."

The comments from the former Speaker came after the U.S. president challenged his own intelligence community's conclusion that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election during a joint news conference with Putin.

"They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin — he just said it’s not Russia," Trump said, adding that he does not "see any reason why it would be" Russia.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia. But his remarks on Monday were an extraordinary break from his own administration, which last week indicted 12 Russian officials on charges of hacking Democratic servers in 2016.

The president's comments prompted criticism from both sides of the aisle and a statement from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats standing by the intelligence community's determination that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

"We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security," Coats said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...ous-mistake-of

I guess even Newt Gingrich thought a Summit between the United States and Russia was a game show. This Summit didn't take place to entertain you with a back alley punching match on worldwide television. This Summit took place for one reason, to improve the relationship between our country and Russia and we'll know soon in the coming days and weeks if that occurred. Our President thinks he made progress in some important areas, lets give it time to see if that happens and if it does, we're all better off for it. I believe we'll see some great things come from this Summit, unless of course the US Department of Justice, the "intel" community and at least some members of Congress want to screw it up.

And, if you do screw this up, there's a bunch of US who will never let you forget it. Americans want peace, we're sick and tired of these neo-cons hawking war at our expense every day of every month of every year. We're sick and tired of idiots who trusted the "intel" community on Iraq WMDs, we're sick and tired of the "intel" community that has no "intel" on North Korea's nuclear missile program that can now strike the United States, we're fed up with valuable "intel" community resources being wasted chasing foreign Russian students attending NRA conventions, investigating Facebook ads, indicting foreign persons over Wikileaks political disclosures and funding civil wars in Libya and Syria.

We want new policies with new and better priorities. We don't want the "evil dictator" mantra any more as an excuse for lost wars and failed foreign policy.

As irritating as it is to the neo-cons, Trump gets this and has for decades, he campaigned on it, it's why he was elected, so sit down, shut up and let him do his job, while you go do yours and figure out how to fix our failed immigration laws and fund border security.

This whole thing is "Trump Derangement syndrome"! President Trump made it clear weeks before the meeting that it would be private between him and Putin. Now we have a bunch of idiots suggesting subpoenaing the translator to reveal the private conversation. Absolutely wrong! The conversation is between the two parties. The translators are only to facilitate that conversation. They do not keep notes, copious or otherwise. So you could only get what they remember if they were paying attention to the context of the conversation rather than the translation of individual words.

Considering that everybody was told it would be a private meeting, they could have mandated the meeting be transcribed before the meeting happened. Maybe they could subpoena Putin. Lots of luck with that. They certainly wouldn't take President Trump's word for it. They have already proven that.

Comparing the situation of the two leaders, President Trump has to get approval of Congress before he can go to war with another country. Putin only has to give the order. If the Congress had mandated that the meeting be available to the public, either directly or by transcription, would Putin have agreed to it? Most likely not. So should the President then not agree to such meetings? Note that during the cold war both the American President and the leader of the Soviet Union had that famous Red Phone, so they could talk directly with each other. Imagine that, taking to your enemy in order to avoid war.

I thought Newt was more intelligent than this. But then, that's why I was against Newt being President. He is knowledgeable about political matters, but I felt his judgement was flawed. He would make a good advisor, but not a good leader.

President trump made no agreements in that meeting. It was mainly the two leaders feeling each other out so they might be oriented to make future agreements that would benefit the world as well as our two countries.

We elect a leader, then politicians from both major parties do everything they can to undermine him.

I was very disappointed in Newt, too.