Trump Tells Russians He's Unconcerned about Interference

In Defying the Odds, we discuss social media, fake news, and Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.   The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.  

The oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Ellen Nakashima at WP:

President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.

A memorandum summarizing the meeting was limited to a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

...
According to the fourth former official, Trump lamented to Lavrov that “all this Russia stuff” was detrimental to good relations. Trump also complained, “I could have a great relationship with you guys, but you know, our press,” this former official said, characterizing the president’s remarks.

H.R. McMaster, the president’s then-national security adviser, repeatedly told Trump he could not trust the Russians, according to two former officials.
...
“What was difficult to understand was how they got a free pass on a lot of things — election security and so forth,” this former official said. “He was just very accommodating to them.”

The former official observed that Trump has “that streak of moral equivalency,” recalling how he once dismissed a question about the assassination of journalists and dissidents in Putin’s Russia by telling Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump v. America

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. On Sunday, he told several Democratic congresswomen to "go back" to their countries.

For years, President Trump admonished America’s shortfalls, stupidity and “carnage.”

Now, he wants people who do the same to leave.https://t.co/kLPzrARL2O pic.twitter.com/cbMrjzntPV

— The Fix (@thefix) July 20, 2019

So the President is the United States is (again) retweeting a woman who once wrote a column saying migrants were "cockroaches" and "feral humans" and "spreading like the norovirus," and once tweeted, “Racial profiling is a good thing. Call me racist, I don’t care.” pic.twitter.com/NKJLhh4JEI

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) July 20, 2019

Trump and AOC on America

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's curious lack of devotion to American principles.  His rhetoric is more Putin than Reagan.  The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

At The Daily Beast, Amy Zimmerman reports on a remark by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

"And for me, what is just so upsetting and heartbreaking about this moment is like, since when did it become the moderate position in America to continue caging children?” 

“And so I think all of these things sound radical compared to where we are, but where we are is not a good thing!” She exclaimed. “And this idea of like 10 percent better than garbage…It shouldn’t be what we settle for.”

Trumpists are attacking her comment as a slur on America.  But note what Trump told The New York Times in 2016:

We have tremendous problems when you have policemen being shot in the streets, when you have riots, when you have Ferguson. When you have Baltimore. When you have all of the things that are happening in this country — we have other problems, and I think we have to focus on those problems. When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.

Trump, Putin, and American Exceptionalism

In Defying the Odds, we explain that Trump has renounced the conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

Fox News interview with Greta Van Susteren, September 12, 2013:

VAN SUSTEREN: Last night, there was an op-ed put in The New York Times by President Putin of Russia. Right before "On the Record" started, the news broke. So I'm curious what you think. Do you think President Obama knew this was coming, or was this an end run on the president?

TRUMP: I don't think he knew it was coming. I thought it was amazingly well crafted. I've read it a number of times. There are a lot of different ideas in there. And frankly, it was very good for Russia. Makes us feel like almost we're being talked down to. But certainly, a very well written letter or op-ed from the standpoint of Russia.

VAN SUSTEREN: All right, well, Russia wants diplomacy, doesn't want military intervention. So what did President Putin gain by sort of slapping the president in the face a little bit, insulting the United States about exceptionalism and also saying that it was not Assad who had the chemical weapons but the rebels? So what does Putin get out of this? He makes everyone angry, not willing to talk.

TRUMP: Well, I think it makes Putin look extremely diplomatic. And you know, they talk all about his dogmatic ways and his toughness, but it actually makes him sound very reasoned and very reasoning. And frankly, I don't know that he wrote the letter. Certainly, there were his ideas. But the way it was crafted was very, very interesting. And it really is talking down to the president. There's no question about that.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, Speaker Boehner said he was insulted by some of the remarks in that. I assume it was the part where it talked about exceptionalism, that he was insulted by that. What I thought was extraordinary is how President Putin wanted to speak directly to the American people and bypass the president in addition to sort of the slaps that he made.

TRUMP: Well, absolutely amazing that he did that. And certainly, it's getting play all over the world. And it really makes him look like a great leader, frankly. And when he criticizes the president for using the term "American exceptionalism," if you're in Russia, you don't want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you're in many other countries, whether it's Germany or other places, you don't want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you're exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that's basically what Putin was saying is that, you know, you use a term like "American exceptionalism," and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it's sort of a hard term to use.

But other nations and other countries don't want hear about American exceptionalism. They're insulted by it. And that's what Putin was saying.

Trump v. The Founding

In  Defying the Odds, we explain that Trump has renounced the conservatism of Ronald Reagan.

He usually dismissed high ideals by reducing them to crude material terms. Consider for instance, America’s foundational proposition that all men are created equal. “The world is not fair,” Trump said in a 2006 video.  [see below] “You know they come with this statement `all men are created equal.’ Well, it sounds beautiful, and it was written by some very wonderful people and brilliant people, but it's not true because all people and all men [laughter] aren't created [equal] … you have to be born and blessed with something up here [pointing to his head]. On the assumption you are, you can become very rich.” Similarly, Trump did not think of “American exceptionalism” as a way of thinking about the nation’s role as a beacon for equality and liberty. As he said in 2015 [see video below] , it was all about the Benjamins.

I want to take everything back from the world that we’ve given them. We’ve given them so much. On top of taking it back, I don’t want to say, “We’re exceptional, we’re more exceptional.” Because essentially we’re saying, “We’re more outstanding than you. By the way, you’ve been eating our lunch for the last 20 years, but we’re more exceptional than you.” I don’t like the term. I never liked it.

Trump’s disdain for these ideas put him at odds with a major strain of conservative thought that revered the Declaration. It surely set him apart from conservatives who loved to quote Reagan’s rhetoric of a “shining city on a hill” and who faulted President Obama for seeming to belittle American exceptionalism. Trump just did not care very much for conservative ideology. In May of 2016, he said: “This is called the Republican Party. It’s not called the Conservative Party.” Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio told a post-election conference: “One of the problems is many people tried to look at the Donald Trump phenomenon through the ideological lenses which had defined previous Republican presidential nominating contests. Donald Trump is post ideological. His movement transcends ideology.”

An important Weekly Standard article by Daniel Krauthammer:

The only way to discern what President Trump's nationalism truly represents is to examine his words and actions—something the New Nationalists generally avoid. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the president's brand of nationalism is the lack of anything uniquely American about it. Unlike every president (and presidential candidate) in living memory, Donald Trumpalmost never employs the ideas and language of the Founders. Try to think of a time you have heard him extol liberty, freedom, democracy, rights, equality, justice—or even utter the words. His speechwriters from time to time insert a few token phrases into his prepared speeches. But in Trump's unprepared remarks at rallies, in debate performances, TV interviews, press conferences, tweets, they barely appear. Clearly, they do not preoccupy him. Our ideals and their fulfillment are not, in his view, what made America great.

Trump Weakened His Own Standing on Human Rights

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's curious lack of devotion to American principles.  His rhetoric is more Putin than Reagan.

From RT:

Havana has blasted US President Donald Trump’s decision Friday to roll back much of Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement and imposing new restrictions on Cuba using the pretext of human rights concerns, calling it a case of double standards.

“The United States is not in a position to give us lessons. We have serious concerns about the respect and guarantees of human rights in that country, where there are numerous cases of murders, brutality and police abuses, particularly against the African American population,” the Cuban government said in a statement, published by the Communist Party's official Granma newspaper

Trump invited this comeback.  It echoes what he himself has said, which in turn echoes Putin.

On September 11, 2013, Putin wrote in The New York Times:

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. 

The next day, Trump told Greta Van Susteren that he agreed with Putin:

And when he criticizes the president for using the term "American exceptionalism," if you're in Russia, you don't want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you're in many other countries, whether it's Germany or other places, you don't want to hear about American exceptionalism because you think you're exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that's basically what Putin was saying is that, you know, you use a term like "American exceptionalism," and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it's sort of a hard term to use.

But other nations and other countries don't want hear about American exceptionalism. They're insulted by it. And that's what Putin was saying.  

On September 27, 2015, Putin told Charlie Rose:

How long did it take the democratic process to develop in the United States? Do you believe that everything is perfect now from the point of view of democracy in the United States? If everything was perfect there wouldn't be the problem of Ferguson. There would be no abuse by the police. 

On July 21 of last year, Trump told The New York Times:

I think right now when it comes to civil liberties, our country has a lot of problems, and I think it’s very hard for us to get involved in other countries when we don’t know what we are doing and we can’t see straight in our own country. We have tremendous problems when you have policemen being shot in the streets, when you have riots, when you have Ferguson. When you have Baltimore. When you have all of the things that are happening in this country — we have other problems, and I think we have to focus on those problems. When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.

And on February 7 of this year, Trump had this exchange with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: He is a killer though. Putin is a killer.
TRUMP: There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent? Do you think our country is so innocent?
O'REILLY: I don't know of any government leaders that are killers in America.
TRUMP: Take a look at what we have done too. We've made a lot of mistakes. I've been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.
O'REILLY: Yes. Mistakes are different then --
TRUMP: A lot of mistakes, okay? But a lot of people were killed. So, a lot of killers around, believe me.

Anti-American Donald: Blame America First

A previous post noted that Trump denied our country's foundational principle, that all men are created equal.

He also rejects the idea of American exceptionalism, echoing Vladimir Putin.

Abby Phillip reports at The Washington Post:

In an interview with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, which will air ahead of the Super Bowl on Sunday, Trump doubled down on his “respect” for Putin — even in the face of accusations that Putin and his associates have murdered journalists and dissidents in Russia.

“I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them,” Trump told O'Reilly.

O'Reilly pressed on, declaring to the president that “Putin is a killer.”

Unfazed, Trump didn't back away, but rather compared Putin's reputation for extrajudicial killings with the United States'.

“There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers,” Trump said. “Well, you think our country is so innocent?”

In the 1980s, Jeane Kirkpatrick warned us against this line of thought:

Marxism incorporates, at the verbal level and the intellectual level, the values of liberal democracy in its assault on liberal democracy and this is precisely why it entraps so many Western intellectuals who are themselves serious liberal democrats. Thus the slightest restriction on, let’s say, the presumption of innocence of the accused is said to demonstrate the absence of the rule of law. The slightest failure of an electoral system demonstrates contempt for political equality. Any use of force in international affairs establishes the lawless character of the society. Now, it is a short step from having demonstrated that a country like the United States is not a law-abiding society to demonstrating that it is lost and that it is like any other lawless society. The Soviets can always claim “We are no worse than you. Even if we are a lawless society, you too are a lawless society, we are no worse than you.” This is the “logic” of the doctrine of moral equivalence.

Or as if Ukraine were culpable for Russian invasion. Like saying Poland had a long-running dispute with Nazi Germany. https://t.co/9iVsEHaGJC

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) February 5, 2017

Kirkpatrick again:

 Along with this kind of redefinition, falsification, and utopianism goes something and that is a simply colossal historical denial, especially on the part of the Russians. Their systematic continuous denial of their own history and practices is epitomized by their denial of the Ukrainian famine, which was denied for decades successfully and is still denied today. The Ukrainian famine is a non-event in the view of Soviet interpreters of reality.

Trump v. American Exceptionalism

Aaron Blake reports at The Washington Post:

The same day that Donald Trump travels to Mexico to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto, Hillary Clinton will attack him for his opposition to the idea of American exceptionalism.

Assisting her in that effort: Donald Trump himself.

And it's not just Trump's campaign slogan to "Make America Great Again" — a formulation that suggests America is no longer great. Trump, in fact, has said at multiple points in recent years that he doesn't much like the idea of American exceptionalism. And he has explained this position in detail.

...

Appearing on Fox News with Greta van Susteren at the time [2013], Trump said he agreed with Putin:

And when he criticizes the president for using the term "American exceptionalism," if you're in Russia, you don't want to hear that America is exceptional. And if you're in many other countries, whether it's Germany or other places, you don't want to hear about American exceptionalism, because you think you're exceptional. So I can see that being very insulting to the world.

And that's basically what Putin was saying — is that, you know, you use a term like "American exceptionalism," and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years — like Iraq and so many others — it's sort of a hard term to use.

But other nations and other countries don't want hear about American exceptionalism. They're insulted by it. And that's what Putin was saying

.

Republicans and Declinism

Jonathan Martin writes at Politico:

“Economically, we are not the nation we once were, and we may be overextended in foreign commitments,” explained Thomas Eller, a retired attorney who attended a GOP luncheon featuring former Sen. Rick Santorum at a local cafe in this western Iowa town last week. “It’s a very difficult time. We cannot continue our slide.”

Asked to sum up what worried him most, Eller said: “the decline of the United States.”

This widespread lament over the loss of the nation they once knew is already provoking a response from GOP presidential prospects. The candidates are tailoring their rhetoric to tap into a fear that is apocalyptic in tone, expressed by a base that is gripped by a sense of deep disappointment with the national GOP and worry over a Democratic president they see as intent on making America more like France.

From tea party luminary Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann to establishment favorite Mitt Romney, the GOP hopefuls are all vying to respond to the mix of fear and outrage coursing through the right.

Newt tweets: "On the way to philadelphia to film movie on american exceptionalism will be at site of constitution and declaration of independence."