If you’re a US president, it’s probably not a great idea to meet with a foreign leader who meddled in your country’s elections without some way to record what’s being discussed.
But that’s just what President Donald Trump apparently did — again.
According to the Financial Times, Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin during last November’s G20 summit in Argentina without a US official present to take notes. First lady Melania Trump was by the president’s side during the chat, but no staff joined them.
The White House had previously acknowledged that both leaders met for an “informal” talk but didn’t disclose that Trump had no official member of his team present. Putin did have someone, though: his translator, although it’s unclear if that person wrote anything down.
So after taking the notes away from his official translator after their Helsinki meeting, Trump again met “privately” with Putin this past November in Argentina. Not only did he again fail to bring any staff along, he also didn’t bring his translator, relying on the solely on the Russian translator.
So why does our President feel the need to keep meeting secretly with Putin? What’s he trying to hide by keeping his national security team out of the loop and why won’t he even have an American translator in the room?
Why? Why a secret meeting that was reported by Russia, not us? Why no US translator or aide attending when Putin had a translator? Why did Trump lie and say he cancelled the meeting?
There’s a lot of unanswered questions here. If the story is true and Trump lied about this meeting and it went down as reported (and it probably did, since it would make sense Russia leaked it as Trump is crossing Putin re: Venezuela) the answers don’t look particularly good for those who hold this country dear.
Mueller is investigating Trump’s ties to Russia and his campaign associates are dropping like flies. The SDNY is investigating his financial activities, and according to Chris Christie they’re a bigger threat to Trump than the Mueller investigation. Politically, Trump has been neutered by Nancy Palosi after he publicly caved after a 35 day government shutdown. Financially, according to Forbes, Trump is worth about $1 billion less today than when he announced he was running for office.
To say things are going badly for Trump is an understatement. This is what happens when a man with so much dirt opens himself up to complete public investigation by running for POTUS. I don’t know what the end game here is, but I bet dollars to donuts if Trump had it to do over again, he would have never come down that golden escalator to announce his candidacy.
Trump is a self-inflicted wound to the GOP right now. Trump supporters are a thing now, but I’m sure most GOP strategists are looking past him long term and figuring out how to survive. This story isn’t doing them any favors.
The ONLY thing that makes sense is that Mr. Putin (that’s what Trump calls him) reassured the President yet again in a most powerful way that Russia had nothing to do with anything our intelligence community says he had something to do with. And if they did it wasn’t illegal. Trump agrees.
Yes, that’s a shopworn flippant remark from the Trump faithful. As usual, you have no reasonable explanation for his latest unprecedented - and unPresidented - act of subservience to the leader of our greatest global adversary.
even if you like Trump meeting with a foreign leader who first language isn’t English without a translator or prepping is the single stupidest thing. that is like going to a job interview for a carpenter when you don’t know what a hammer is.