Thread: Trump doesn't care what people think about his relationship with Putin

Trump doesn't care what people think about his relationship with Putin

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 1:00 AM ET, Tue July 3, 2018

(CNN) President Donald Trump clearly doesn't care what anyone thinks about his baffling, opaque and deferential relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a demonstration of his growing willingness to flout diplomatic convention and the concerns of US allies, Trump apparently plans to meet with the Russian leader alone, likely with only translators in the room, at the start of their summit in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16.

A source familiar with the planning of the meeting told CNN's Kevin Liptak on Monday that the encounter would parallel Trump's initial private encounter with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month in Singapore, before their summit expanded to include other top officials.

It's not particularly unusual for presidents to sit down solo with other leaders before more formal diplomatic talks involving their delegations. And if a connection between Trump and Putin stems the slide in relations between the world's premier nuclear powers, it would benefit US national security and the whole world.

But if Trump decides to go ahead with a one-on-one without his delegation behind closed doors, it would represent a thumb in the eye of his critics, given the curiosity and widespread concern in Washington and among US allies over the relationship between the US President and the Russian leader.

After all, Putin is accused of ordering an influence operation to interfere in the 2016 US election that evolved into a bid to help Trump win.

Trump, meanwhile, has recently yet again given credence to Russia's denials of election meddling, in defiance of the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies.

Fueling speculation about his relationship with Putin are Trump's comments last week, in which he left the door open to recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea. He has taken to blaming former President Barack Obama, not Putin, for Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. He also has spooked US allies by calling for Russia's readmission to the G7.

"The Europeans are petrified that he is going to sell them out and he is going to recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea," Max Boot, a historian and CNN national security analyst, told CNN's Kate Bolduan on Monday.

Heading into the Helsinki summit, Trump's attacks on US allies -- which turned the G7 summit in Canada into a debacle -- attempts to widen divides in the European Union and criticism of other institutions of the transatlantic alliance are playing directly into Putin's anti-Western goals.

Then there is the widespread speculation about whether Russian intelligence agencies have any compromising information about Trump or his business dealings that may help to explain his refusal to criticize Putin and willingness to mirror the Russian leader's foreign policy positions.

Given all this, it would not be surprising if Trump sought to avoid any impression that he was under Putin's sway -- for instance, a one-on-one meeting with no other officials present.

But Trump's political career suggests he will take the course of action that most infuriates his critics, and he is loath to give in to pressure.

Some officials who have worked to stage past presidential summits fault the President's staff for not shielding him from an in-person encounter with Putin, arguing that he is badly mismatched with the wily Russian leader, who was trained by the KGB.

"It is no secret that the President doesn't do well one-on-one with Vladimir Putin," CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd said Monday, recalling how Trump ignored advice not to congratulate the Russian leader on his re-election this year.

"If he is sitting across the table from Vladimir Putin, who is a highly skilled manipulator and negotiator, the chances are things could go off the rails," said Vinograd, who was a senior National Security Council staffer in the Obama administration.

Will Trump try to impress Putin?

Diplomats working for US allies, stunned by their acrimonious split with Trump at the G7 and his decision to invoke a national security rationale to slap tariffs on European steel and aluminum, are viewing the Helsinki summit with concern.

There are fears that the President will be so keen to impress Putin that he will be even more confrontational than expected at the NATO summit in Brussels a few days before he goes to Helsinki.

Trump will also visit Britain on his Europe trip, where suspicion of his ties with Putin runs deep, especially after the poisoning with a nerve agent of a former Russia spy and his daughter on UK soil, an operation blamed on the Kremlin's intelligence agencies.

Britain's former finance minister George Osborne told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that the Putin-Trump summit -- which the US President is highly enthusiastic about -- would compromise trust in the US administration.

"It makes the US a less reliable partner for Western countries like my own, and of course the atmosphere drives the media agenda, all of which points to a disintegration of Western unity," Osborne said.

The White House disputes the idea that there is anything sinister about the relationship between Trump and Russia, maintaining the line that no president has been tougher on Moscow than Trump. It also says Trump believes there is a chance to ease the acrimony in relations with Moscow in a way that could further global peace.

The President did sign off on the expulsions of 60 Russian diplomats and fresh sanctions in solidarity with US allies after the poisoning of the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal. The White House points out that Trump also endorsed the sale of lethal weapons to the government of Ukraine, a step the Obama administration did not take.

It was not the first time that the authentically hard line the administration has sometimes pursued toward Russia seemed at odds with the President's personal preferences.

Yet Trump's rhetoric and behavior in recent weeks have only added to the impression he prefers Putin's company to that of allies like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Bolton: Don't get the 'vapors'

Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, said Sunday that no one should get a "case of the vapors" about the President's comments on NATO and Russia.

"The main rationale to have a bilateral meeting between Trump and Putin: Let them discuss these issues and see exactly where there might be room for progress, or where they might find there's no room at all," Bolton said on "Fox News Sunday."

But in another appearance, on CBS's "Face the Nation," Bolton notably did not rule out the possibility that Trump could recognize the annexation of Crimea.

"The President makes the policy. I don't make the policy," Bolton said.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders offered a more unequivocal statement of US policy on Monday.

"We do not recognize Russia's attempt to annex Crimea. We agree to disagree with Russia on that front. And our Crimea sanctions against Russia will remain in place until Russia returns the peninsula to the Ukraine."

But Trump's critics worry that established US policy positions and the advice of top officials may not mean much when the President gets in a room with Putin.

When Trump emerged from his meeting with Kim, for instance, he stunned America's Asian allies and his own staff by announcing a halt to US-South Korea military maneuvers that have long infuriated Pyongyang.

Such concessions are why a one-on-one encounter between Trump and Putin is a wild card.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/03/polit...mit/index.html

This is going to be a wonderful summit with many good outcomes.

1. Finish off ISIS once and for all
2. Finish off Iran in Syria
3. Finish Syria Civil War, restore and rebuild without US money or troops
4. Finish North Korea Denuke Peace Treaty
5. Resume START Talks
6. Start bi-lateral trade agreement between US and Russia

Question: If the people of Crimea who are Russian want to be part of Russia, then why does the US who supposedly believes in the will of the people want to force them to be part of the Ukraine, a Soviet Union decision as if the people of Crimea are some pawn with no say in the matter?

Answer: Ukraine Lobby

Question: What national interest does the present policy of forcing Crimeans to be part of Ukraine when Crimeans want to be part of Russia because they're Russians serve?

Answer: Ukraine Lobby

Trump's not going to be President forever. His big interest in Russia may actually be a little nefarious. The potential for quid pro quo certainly could exist here.

In my opinion, for appearance sake, Trump needs to remain distanced from Putin and Russia for now.

For Trump, Three Decades of Chasing Deals in Russia


Donald J. Trump, a co-owner of the Miss Universe contest at the time, at an after-party for the 2013 pageant in Moscow. He also used the visit to Moscow to discuss development deals.CreditStoyan Vassev/ReutersBy Megan Twohey and Steve Eder

• Jan. 16, 2017
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It was 2005, and Felix Sater, a Russian immigrant, was back in Moscow pursuing an ambitious plan to build a Trump tower on the site of an old pencil factory along the Moscow River that would offer hotel rooms, condominiums and commercial office space.

Letters of intent had been signed and square footage was being analyzed. “There was an opportunity to explore building Trump towers internationally,” said Mr. Sater, who worked for a New York-based development company that was a partner with Donald J. Trump on a variety of deals during that decade. “And Russia was one of those countries.”

The president-elect’s favorable comments about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the conclusion of United States intelligence officials that Moscow acted to help Mr. Trump’s campaign have focused attention on Mr. Trump’s business interests in Russia. Asked about the issue at his news conference last week, Mr. Trump was emphatic on one point: “I have no dealings with Russia.” And he repeated, “I have no deals that could happen in Russia because we’ve stayed away.”
The project on the old pencil factory site ultimately fizzled. And by the time Mr. Trump entered the presidential race, he had failed to get any real estate development off the ground in Russia. But it was not for lack of trying.

Mr. Trump repeatedly sought business in Russia as far back as 1987, when he traveled there to explore building a hotel. He applied for his trademark in the country as early as 1996. And his children and associates have appeared in Moscow over and over in search of joint ventures, meeting with developers and government officials.

During a trip in 2006, Mr. Sater and two of Mr. Trump’s children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, stayed at the historic Hotel National Moscow opposite the Kremlin, connecting with potential partners over the course of several days.

As recently as 2013, Mr. Trump himself was in Moscow. He had sold Russian real estate developers the right to host his Miss Universe pageant that year, and he used the visit as a chance to discuss development deals, writing on Twitter at the time: “TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next.”

As the Russian market opened up in the post-Soviet era, Mr. Trump and his partners pursued Russians who were newly flush with cash to buy apartments in Trump Towers in New York and Florida, sales that he boasted about in a 2014 interview. “I know the Russians better than anybody,” Mr. Trump told Michael D’Antonio, a Trump biographer who shared unpublished interview transcripts with The New York Times.

Seeking deals in Russia became part of a broader strategy to expand the Trump brand worldwide. By the mid-2000s, Mr. Trump was transitioning to mostly licensing his name to hotel, condominium and commercial towers rather than building or investing in real estate himself. He discovered that his name was especially attractive in developing countries where the rising rich aspired to the type of ritzy glamour he personified.

While he nailed down ventures in the Philippines, India and elsewhere, closing deals in Russia proved challenging. In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. praised the opportunities in Russia, but also called it a “scary place” to do business because of corruption and legal complications.

Mr. Sater said that American hotel chains that had moved into Russia did so with straightforward agreements to manage hotels that other partners owned. Mr. Trump, by contrast, was pursuing developments that included residential or commercial offerings in which he would take a cut of sales, terms that Russians were reluctant to embrace.

Even so, Mr. Trump said his efforts put him in contact with powerful people there. “I called it my weekend in Moscow,” Mr. Trump said of his 2013 trip to Moscow during a September 2015 interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” He added: “I was with the top-level people, both oligarchs and generals, and top of the government people. I can’t go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary.”

When asked about Mr. Trump’s claim that he had “stayed away” from Russia, Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said it was a fair characterization given that none of the development opportunities ever materialized. Mr. Trump’s interest in Russia, he said, was no different from his attraction to other emerging markets in which he investigated possible ventures. Mr. Garten did not respond to questions about whom Mr. Trump met with in Moscow in 2013 and what was discussed.

Stalking Deals

Ted Liebman, an architect based in New York, got the call in 1996. Mr. Trump and Liggett-Ducat, an American tobacco company that owned property in Moscow, wanted to build a high-end residential development near an old Russian Olympic stadium. As they prepared to meet with officials in Moscow, they needed sketches of the Trump tower they envisioned.
The architect scrambled to meet the request, handing over plans to Mr. Trump at his Manhattan office. “I hope we can do this,” Mr. Liebman recalled Mr. Trump telling him.

Soon after, Mr. Trump was in Russia, promoting the proposal and singing the praises of the Russian market.
“I’ve seen cities all over the world. Some I’ve liked, some I haven’t,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference in Moscow in 1996, according to The Moscow Times. But he added that he didn’t think he had ever been “as impressed with the potential of a city as I have been with Moscow.” Mr. Trump had been eyeing the potential for nearly a decade, expressing interest to government officials ranging from the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev (they first met in Washington in 1987) to the military figure Alexander Lebed.


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The 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Mr. Trump sold Russian real estate developers the right to host his Miss Universe pageant that year.CreditMaxim Shemetov/ReutersThe 1996 project never materialized, but by then Mr. Trump was already well known in Russia. Moscow was in the midst of a construction boom, which transformed the capital from a drab, post-Soviet expanse into a sparkly modern city.

Yuri M. Luzhkov, Moscow’s mayor at the time, said in an interview that he had met with Mr. Trump and showed him plans for a massive underground shopping mall just outside the Kremlin gates. Mr. Trump suggested connecting it to the Metro, “a very important observation,” Mr. Luzhkov said. Today, visitors to the Okhotny Ryad shopping center can go straight from the Metro to the Calvin Klein store without venturing into the cold.

In the following years, Mr. Trump’s pursuit of Russia was strengthened by a growing circle of partners and associates in Canada and the United States who had roots in the region. Among them were Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet-era commerce official originally from Kazakhstan who founded a development company called the Bayrock Group, and Mr. Sater, a partner in the firm, who had moved to New York from Russia as a child.

Bayrock was in Trump Tower, two floors below the Trump Organization. While working to take Trump-branded towers to Arizona, Florida and New York’s SoHo neighborhood, Bayrock also began scouting for deals in Russia and other countries.
“We looked at some very, very large properties in Russia,” Mr. Sater said. “Think of a large Vegas high-rise.”
When Mr. Sater traveled to Moscow with Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. to meet with developers in 2006, he said their attitude could be summarized as “nice, big city, great. Let’s do a deal here.” Mr. Trump continued to work with Mr. Sater even after his role in a huge stock manipulation scheme involving Mafia figures and Russian criminals was revealed; Mr. Sater pleaded guilty and served as a government informant.

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Mr. Trump with Tevfik Arif, center, and Felix Sater at the Trump SoHo launch party in 2007. Mr. Trump discussed deals in Russia with their development company, the Bayrock Group, but they never materialized.CreditMark Von Holden/WireImageIn 2007, Mr. Trump discussed a deal for a Trump International Hotel and Tower in Moscow that Bayrock had lined up with Russian investors.

“It would be a nonexclusive deal, so it would not have precluded me from doing other deals in Moscow, which was very important to me,” Mr. Trump said in a deposition in an unsuccessful libel suit he brought against Tim O’Brien, a journalist.

He claimed the development had fallen apart after Mr. O’Brien wrote a book saying that Mr. Trump was worth far less than he claimed. But Mr. Trump said he was close to striking another real estate deal in Moscow. “We’re going to do one fairly soon,” he said. Moscow, he insisted “will be one of the cities where we will be.”

Making a Mark

The Trump brand did appear in Russia, but not quite as the grand edifice the real estate mogul had envisioned.
Trump Super Premium Vodka, with the shine of bottles glazed with 24-karat gold, was presented at the Millionaire’s Fair in Moscow in 2007, and large orders for the spirits followed. The vodka was sold in Russia as late as 2009, but eventually fizzled out. In a news release, Mr. Trump heralded it as a “tremendous achievement.” He tried — and failed — to start a reality show in St. Petersburg in 2008 starring a Russian mixed martial arts fighter.

But real estate developments remained a constant goal. From 2006 to 2008, his company applied for several trademarks in Russia, including Trump, Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower, and Trump Home, according to a record search by Sojuzpatent, a Russian intellectual property firm.


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In 2006, Mr. Sater and two of Mr. Trump’s children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, stayed at the Hotel National Moscow across from the Kremlin, connecting with potential partners over several days.CreditYuri Kadobnov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Donald Trump Jr. became a regular presence in Russia. Speaking at a 2008 Manhattan real estate conference, he confessed to fears of doing business in Russia, saying there is “an issue of ‘Will I ever see my money back out of that deal or can I actually trust the person I am doing the deal with?’” according to coverage of his remarks in eTurboNews.

But he told the Manhattan audience that “I really prefer Moscow over all cities in the world” and that he had visited Russia a half-dozen times in 18 months.

In 2011, he was still at it. “Heading to the airport to go to Moscow for business,” he tweeted that year.
Mr. Trump himself was back in Moscow in 2013, attending the Miss Universe pageant, which he owned with NBC.
Earlier that year, at the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas, he had announced that Aras and Emin Agalarov, father and son real estate developers in Russia, would host the worldwide competition.

Erin Brady, that year’s Miss USA winner, who watched the announcement from backstage of the auditorium at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, said the news was a surprise. She was expecting one of the Latin American countries where beauty pageants are widely celebrated.

“I was like, ‘Wow, Russia, I never thought of that,’” she said.

Phil Ruffin, Mr. Trump’s partner in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Las Vegas, said he was happy to lend him his new Global 5000 private plane for the trip. He and his wife met Mr. Trump in Moscow, also checking into the Ritz-Carlton. Mr. Ruffin said he and Mr. Trump had lunch at the hotel with the Agalarovs.

The Agalarovs also reportedly hosted a dinner for Mr. Trump the night of the pageant, along with Herman Gref, a former Russian economy minister who serves as chief executive of the state-controlled Sberbank PJSC, according to Bloomberg News.
Talk of development deals swirled around the visit, and Mr. Trump sent out his tweet, promising that Trump Tower Moscow was coming.

But the tower never appeared on the skyline.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/u...-business.html

Republicans meet with Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow ahead of Trump-Putin summit

A delegation of Republican lawmakers met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday.

The Moscow sit-down was arranged "realizing that we have a strained relationship when we could have a better relationship between the U.S. and Russia," said Sen. Richard Shelby at the start of the discussion.

Shelby told Lavrov he hoped that Trump's meeting with Putin could mark a turning point for relations between the two countries.

Kevin Breuninger
Published 50 Mins Ago CNBC.com
July 3, 2018

A group of Republican lawmakers met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday in hopes of mending the strained relations between the two countries.

The lawmakers' visit to Russia comes two weeks ahead of the planned July 16 summit in Helsinki, Finland, between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Moscow sit-down was arranged "realizing that we have a strained relationship when we could have a better relationship between the U.S. and Russia," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said to Lavrov at the start of the discussion, according to video footage taken by Radio Free Europe.

"We have some common interests," Shelby said. "We are competitors, but we don't necessarily need to be adversaries."

In addition to Shelby, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, the delegation included his fellow committee members John Kennedy of Louisiana, North Dakota's John Hoeven, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Montana's Steve Daines. Also in attendance: Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.

The delegation arrived in St. Petersburg on Saturday, according to Russian news agency Tass. They reportedly traveled to Moscow on Monday.

In a statement to CNBC, Daines said national security motivated the trip. We want to "personally assess the threats Russia poses, and what actions are necessary to keep our nation secure," he said.

None of the other lawmakers immediately responded to CNBC's requests for comment.

No Democrats attended the event. “We have nothing to do with it,” said David Carle, a spokesman for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the appropriations committee’s ranking Democrat. Carle referred other questions to the attendees.

The Republican overtures to Russia dovetail with Trump's recent comments ahead of the Helsinki summit. Trump recently told reporters he planned to discuss a raft of contentious issues with Putin, including Russia's roles in Ukraine and Syria, as well as the issue of meddling during the 2016 election.

But while numerous U.S. intelligence agencies agree that Russia interfered in the election in Trump's favor, Trump himself has been reluctant to accept their findings in full.

Last week, for instance, Trump appeared to cite Russia's denials about election meddling as further evidence of corruption and bias within law enforcement agencies.

Shelby made no mention of election meddling in his recorded remarks with Lavrov. He told the Kremlin official that he hoped Trump's meeting with Putin could mark a turning point for relations between the two countries.

The Helsinki meeting could hopefully mark "the beginning maybe of a new day," Shelby said. "We will have to wait and see."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/03/ahea...ficials-i.html

Good!

Originally Posted by MW

Trump's not going to be President forever. His big interest in Russia may actually be a little nefarious. The potential for quid pro quo certainly could exist here.

So once again, MW apparently endorses the idea that President Trump and family took the Presidency only for personal profit. He took a pay cut. His daughter's company took a financial hit. So nefarious!

Trump Haters are so obvious even when they try to obfuscate it.

Originally Posted by jtdc

So once again, MW apparently endorses the idea that President Trump and family took the Presidency only for personal profit. He took a pay cut. His daughter's company took a financial hit. So nefarious!

Huh??? I don't recall making such a claim previous to this. Please refresh my memory. I'm just simply adding 2+2 to come ups with 4. Perhaps you and Judy are big supporters of Putin and Russia, and that's fine, but there is no reason to think the majority of Americans support your enthusiasm and love of Putin and Russia.

Personally, I think there could be a connection. Sorry you don't think the possibility exists.

Originally Posted by Judy

Trump Haters are so obvious even when they try to obfuscate it.

Ha, ha, ha. Rich when coming from the queen of obfuscation.

Not a Trump cheerleader or Trump cult member. Also, not a Trump hater. Just stating an opinion and offering an article to support my opinion. Nothing wrong with that. Can't I have an opinion? It's not like you don't have plenty of them yourself.

Someone needs to adjust the antennae on their tin-foil hat.

Most Americans are very enthusiastic about a new relationship with Russia. Trump ran on this goal and he will deliver.