Thread: Donald Trump’s Campaign Stands By Embrace of Putin

Donald Trump’s Campaign Stands By Embrace of Putin

By JONATHAN MARTIN and AMY CHOZICK SEPT. 8, 2016

WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s campaign on Thursday reaffirmed its extraordinary embrace of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, signaling a preference for the leadership of an authoritarian adversary over that of America’s own president, despite a cascade of criticism from Democrats and expressions of discomfort among Republicans.

“I think it’s inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country,” said Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana on CNN, defending Mr. Trump by echoing his latest praise for the Russian leader, offered Wednesday night in a televised candidate forum.

Hillary Clinton excoriated Mr. Trump for asserting that Mr. Putin is a better leader than President Obama, saying it was “not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander in chief, it is scary.”

She seized on Mr. Trump’s assertion in the televised forum that Mr. Putin’s incursions into neighboring countries, crackdown on Russia’s independent news media and support for America’s enemies were no more troublesome than Mr. Obama’s transgressions. She said it showed that, if elected, Mr. Trump would be little more than a tool of Mr. Putin’s.

“It suggests he will let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do, and then make excuses for him,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters Thursday morning at the White Plains airport, stepping up her criticism as polls indicate the race has tightened — and as Mr. Trump continues to say things rarely heard before from a major party presidential nominee.

In the Wednesday forum, which was moderated by Matt Lauer of NBC and was devoted to national security issues, Mr. Trump twice denigrated America’s generals; suggested he would fire the country’s current military leadership; and insinuated — vaguely, unverifiably and without evidence — that the intelligence officials who recently gave him a classified briefing about threats to the United States had said that the president had flouted their advice.

Mrs. Clinton delighted at the chance to change the subject from her uneven performance at the forum, under treatment by Mr. Lauer that many observers believed was harsher than his handling of Mr. Trump. Her campaign could barely contain its wonder that her opponents were now allowing her to chain Mr. Trump to a Russian leader widely seen as hostile to the United States.

In the forum, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin that he had been a leader “far more than our president,” and he praised Mr. Putin’s firm grip on Russia.

And after Mr. Lauer highlighted Mr. Putin’s record, Mr. Trump shot back, “But do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time?”

Such talk represents a remarkable break from the traditional boundaries of American political speech. And, as with his past provocations, Mr. Trump once again left his fellow Republicans scrambling to defend what many effectively conceded was indefensible.

“Vladimir Putin is an aggressor who does not share our interests,” Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters on Thursday in Washington, accusing the Russian leader of “conducting state-sponsored cyberattacks” on “our political system.”

Mr. Ryan was referring to the hack of the servers of the Democratic National Committee, which American officials believe was conducted by Russian intelligence services. At the NBC forum, Mr. Trump disputed Russia’s guilt, telling Mr. Lauer the culprits were not definitively known.

Mr. Trump went even further on Thursday, saying in an interview on the Kremlin-backed Russia Today network that “it’s probably unlikely” the Russians were responsible for the hack and that Democrats “are putting that out.”

In a fashion that would have been unheard-of for a Republican during or immediately after the Cold War, Mr. Trump has made improved relations with the Kremlin a centerpiece of his candidacy. And Russia has been a subplot of the campaign that Tom Clancy and John le Carre together may have been unable to conjure, complete with the apparent Russian hack of America’s political parties, a looming threat that Russian hackers may try to tamper with electronic voting machines, and Mr. Putin’s unsubtle preference for Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan called Vladimir V. Putin an “aggressor” and an “adversary” on Thursday, after the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump had lauded the Russian president on Wednesday.

While railing against Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries, Mr. Trump has continually praised Mr. Putin’s government: He has hailed Mr. Putin’s tight control over Russian society, has hinted that he may not defend the NATO-aligned Baltic States formerly in Moscow’s sphere of influence, and for a time employed a campaign chief with close ties to Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces.

Most extraordinarily, Mr. Trump used a news conference over the summer to urge the Russians to hack into Mrs. Clinton’s emails to find what messages the F.B.I. might have missed.

It is all rather confounding — unless Mr. Trump is simply eyeing postelection business interests — for congressional Republicans, who evince little doubt that Moscow was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee. On Thursday, they volunteered the sort of hard-edge criticism of Mr. Putin more typical of conservatives discussing an adversary of the United States.

“He’s a thug,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “He’s a dangerous and bad guy.”

But Mr. Rubio, who is running for re-election, has gotten behind Mr. Trump since withdrawing from the presidential primary, and declined to say whether Mr. Trump’s comments were out of bounds because he did not want to “be a commentator.”

Even Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, perhaps Mr. Trump’s closest ally on Capitol Hill, appeared ill at ease when pressed about Mr. Trump’s statements.

Asked whether political combat should stop at the water’s edge, Mr. Sessions paused for nearly 10 seconds before saying, “I’ve tried to adhere to that line pretty assiduously, but less and less does that get adhered to in the modern world.”

For their part, Democrats were at once dumbfounded over Mr. Trump’s latest verbal excess, gleeful over a fresh opportunity to portray him as unpresidential and irritated that he had not been not pressed more aggressively by Mr. Lauer.

Mingling outside the Capitol on a broiling day, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, and Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, two of the longest-serving and bluntest-speaking members of Congress, found themselves uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

“If Rangel or Reid had said that, 15 years ago or five years ago, we would be through,” Mr. Reid said of Mr. Trump’s Putin praise. “Can you imagine somebody running for president who has acknowledged publicly that he likes Putin better than Obama? How about that one?”

Mr. Rangel interjected: “A communist leader that’s a potential enemy!”

Other Democrats, though, saw Mr. Trump’s comments about Mr. Putin as a bonanza, given the scrutiny of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. Representative Joseph Crowley of New York called Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Russians should hack into Mrs. Clinton’s emails “verbal treason” and said his “diarrhea of the mouth” would be his undoing.

Democrats and even some Republicans said the fury would have been unceasing on the right had a Democratic presidential candidate held up the leader of a hostile power to deride a Republican president.

Scholars could recall few parallels in modern American history. Only the campaign of Henry Wallace, who ran as the Progressive Party nominee in 1948, was so willing to align itself with Russia, the historian Richard Norton Smith said. “We’ve become to some degree numbed to this, saying, ‘That’s just Trump,’” he said. “And that’s dangerous.”

In her news conference on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton invoked the right’s most venerated president, from whose library Mr. Pence appeared on CNN. “What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks American generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president?”

After the news conference, Mrs. Clinton flew to North Carolina to rally African-American voters — and seized the chance to again assail Mr. Trump’s comments. “He prefers the Russian president to our president,” Mrs. Clinton said in Charlotte.

But Mr. Trump showed no sign of regret. His aides did not reply to an email asking if the campaign wanted to clarify the candidate’s comments about Mr. Putin, and deemed Mrs. Clinton’s assault “the desperate attacks of a flailing campaign sinking in the polls.”

Mr. Trump himself appeared mostly focused on media coverage of the NBC forum. “Wow, reviews are in — THANK YOU!” he wrote on Twitter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us...utin.html?_r=0

“It suggests he will let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do, and then make excuses for him,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters Thursday morning at the White Plains airport, stepping up her criticism as polls indicate the race has tightened — and as Mr. Trump continues to say things rarely heard before from a major party presidential nominee.

The facts and history prove otherwise, Hillary. You let Putin do whatever Putin wants to do. You let Putin invade the Ukraine. You let them annex Crimea. You caved into taking missile defense out of Czechoslavakia and other countries.

Just like you let North Korea build nuclear missiles.

Just like you let Mexico over-run our borders.

Just like you let China steal our economy.

Just like you let Iran take over Iraq.

Just like you let 4 Americans die in Benghazi.

Just like you let ISIS take over Syria and expand into 28 countries.

Just like .... well, the list is just too long to tell it all.

You're a failure, Hillary, a loser. We need victory, a winner, like Donald J Trump. Americans are sick and tired of losing to other countries, Americans are fed up with corrupt politicians who can't figure out how to make any money of their own except through 501 C 3 "charities" and selling their influence as public officials. We're fed up with your rhetoric, your jargon, your actions, and you.

We're done with the Clintons, just as we were done with the Bushes. It's not political, it's just fact.

GET SMART AMERICA!!

VOTE FOR DONALD J TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!

IMO, Trump and Pence need to stop praising Putin publicly. Whether true or not today, most Americans have been programmed over their lifetime to believe Russia is the enemy. Personally, I think Putin is a corrupt politician, but my thoughts are insignificant in the big scheme of things. What's important is what most of the voting public thinks and I don't think they have favorable thoughts of Russia or its leadership.

Most Americans actually want a good relationship with Russia. No nation of citizens was as excited about the end of the Soviet Union during the Reagan Administration than the American People. We want to be friends with Russia, we should have never been in a cold war with them to begin with.

We need to stop attacking socialist countries and work with them instead. Russia is now a mix of socialism and capitalism. They are nationalists however, have no interest in globalism on any scale that harms their country, they don't understand governments who want to sell out their own people.

Trump will give the Russians something to like, a common ground, the first time in a long time. Trump doesn't make his talks, speeches and comments to win an election. Trump makes his statements to lead our country, to show us the truth and lead us in a better direction, he's got it right on Russia by pushing a better relationship with Russia and we should stand by him on that.

We want to be friends with Russia, we should have never been in a cold war with them to begin with.

Actually the cold war was the best case scenario because the alternative was an all out hot war. The result of which would have been catastrophic for all mankind. The cold war collapsed the USSR economically, which was a good thing for us.

I'm firmly behind the belief of peace through strength. That's the philosophy that guided us to victory in the cold war and a policy that protected us from nuclear war. A bully never picks on someone superior in strength.

Trump is going to make us strong again.

Originally Posted by Judy

Most Americans actually want a good relationship with Russia. No nation of citizens was as excited about the end of the Soviet Union during the Reagan Administration than the American People. We want to be friends with Russia, we should have never been in a cold war with them to begin with.

We need to stop attacking socialist countries and work with them instead. Russia is now a mix of socialism and capitalism. They are nationalists however, have no interest in globalism on any scale that harms their country, they don't understand governments who want to sell out their own people.

Trump will give the Russians something to like, a common ground, the first time in a long time. Trump doesn't make his talks, speeches and comments to win an election. Trump makes his statements to lead our country, to show us the truth and lead us in a better direction, he's got it right on Russia by pushing a better relationship with Russia and we should stand by him on that.

I think it is pretty simple. We should treat the Russian Federation no worse than we treat the People's Republic of China. If we treated the RF as nicely as we treated the PRC, it wouldn't be any more dramatic then Trump's suggestion that we get along better with the RF. We should remember that whatever Putin's faults, he is not the beginning and end of Russia, he is not a dictator. He is just the most visible part.

If we had treated the Soviet Union as generously as we treat the People's Republic of China now, the Soviet Union would still be here. Would that be a good thing? I don't think it would be a good thing for the Russians. The Soviet Union was largely a parasite on the Russian people and cutting loose the Eastern Bloc and much of the interior Soviets was a good thing. The death of the Communist Party dictatorship was also a good thing. It really had to go. Perhaps something similar has happened in the PRC to prevent the same melt down in the Communist Party that still runs the country. But the PRC still has similar problems with nationalist movements in society not really up to national independence. Like Tibet. Like Xinjiang.

The end of the Soviet Union was a great thing; It was achieved through good diplomacy, respect, intelligence, and most probably the personal relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev. Perhaps even more results can occur through a personal relationship between Putin and Trump. No one pushes Trump around, ask anyone who has tried.

Originally Posted by Judy

The end of the Soviet Union was a great thing; It was achieved through good diplomacy, respect, intelligence, and most probably the personal relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev. Perhaps even more results can occur through a personal relationship between Putin and Trump. No one pushes Trump around, ask anyone who has tried.

I have to disagree that the collapse of the Soviet Union was brought about by anything like good diplomacy, respect or intelligence. It was a Cold War, literally. The Soviet Union and the West kept the world on the edge of Armageddon for decades. The massive military spending coupled with walling off the USSR economically is what caused its collapse. The final blow for the USSR was its disastrous engagement in Afghanistan, against the US supported Jihadists now dominating the region.

Like I said, if we had treated the Soviet Union the same way we treat China now, the USSR would still be here. We are extremely generous in trade with the communist People's Republic of China. It is commonly reported that they own our economy.

It makes one wonder what the Cold War was really all about. And now that communism is dead in Russia, we continue to exhibit military and economic aggression against it as if nothing had changed. Was it really communism, or was there some other source of hostility? It is a question that suggests careful scrutiny.

That's the theory of nuclear detente.