President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I thought Sarah is with him on this trip.

 

I wonder if YF will turn out to be an unidentified conspirator in the Russian probe ...

 

Russia = interferes in the election process

America = violently topples the incumbent government --- sometimes killing the leader, sometimes forcing him to flee --- and installs its own

And THAT doesn't mean a thing to anybody here.

 

We stopped being the good guys a long time ago.

I’m guessing around 1950s. I could be wrong on the date, but we are not the good guys anymore.

 

Let us know when the USA poisons Russia dissidents, murders journalists and entire political structure is the bastard child of organized crime.

Better yet, let us know when you’re moving over there.

 

Right-wingers have always loved this country. But they just hate so many people who live there.

 

So the eroding of our democracy we should just bend over and take it?

 

Not at all. But we can start by leading by example (i.e. don't erode other nations' elections).

Beyond that, we need to secure our voting process as best we can. I don't believe any votes were altered, etc., in 2016, but it certainly can be buttoned up a bunch, I'd guess.

Can't really do much about propaganda ads saying "Hillary is the devil," but then, isn't that what Fox News and right-wing radio have been saying for a quarter-century anyway? Does anybody really think $44,000 of Russian Facebook ads parroting that same message changed any minds?

Five Trump critics were recently murdered at an Annapolis newspaper.

That's how Pravda would write the headline, if it used our standards for reporting news:

 

"enemy of the people"

 

Trump combines all negative characteristics. To sum him up in one word: disgraceful.

 

How outraged am I supposed to get, when a adversary's foreign intelligence service acts like... an adversary's foreign intelligence service?

Especially when the experts have repeatedly said that there is no evidence that a single vote was changed as a result of their efforts, let alone the outcome of the election changed.

Those who have attempted to undermine Trump's victory have done far more to achieve Moscow's goals, than anything their "hackers" did. It's exactly what Russia was attempting to do.

We should expect, and defend against these kinds of attacks, and to be clear, it was not the election that was "hacked" it was John Podesta and the DNC. That's on them.

Finally, I think Rand Paul gave a realistic answer -- even if he did consult @BTExpress' notes -- to Jake Tapper this morning:

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Jake Tapper, live in Helsinki, Finland.

Tomorrow's Trump-Putin summit is causing anxiety among some Republicans; fears that President Trump might give too much away or not be tough enough. But Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky says President Trump is doing the right thing by meeting face to face. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and joins me now from his home state of Kentucky.

Senator Paul -- thanks so much for joining us, ass as always.

Just 48 hours ago the U.S. government, the Trump administration said that top Russian military intelligence officers orchestrated a massive hack to affect the U.S. election. How much do you want President Trump to try to hold Putin accountable for that?

SENATOR RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: I think really we mistake our response if we think it's about accountability from the Russians. They are another country. They are going to spy on us. The do spy on us. They are going to interfere in our elections. We also do the same.

Doug Levin at Carnegie Mellon studied this over about a 50-year period in the last century and found 81 times that the U.S. interfered in other country's elections. So we all do it.

What we need to do is make sure our electoral process is protected. And I think because this has gotten partisan and it's all about partisan politics, we've forgotten that really the most important thing is the integrity of our election. And there are things we can do and things that I've advocated. Making sure it's decentralized all the way down to the precinct level. Making sure we don't store all of the data in one place even for a state and that there's a backup way that someone in the precinct can say 2,000 people signed in. This was the vote tally I sent to headquarters. There's a lot of ways we can back up our election.

Advertising and things like that. It's tricky. Can we restrict the Russians? We might be able to in some ways but I think in the bottom line we wanted the Russians to admit it. They are not going to admit it the same way we're not going to admit that we were involved in the Ukrainian elections, or in the Russian elections.

So all countries that can spy do; all countries that want to interfere in elections and have the ability to, they try.

TAPPER: It sounds as though you are saying that the United States has done the equivalent of what the Russians did in the 2016 election and it might sound to some viewers that you're offering that statement as an excuse for what the Russians did.

PAUL: No, what I would say it's not morally equivalent but I think in their mind it is. And I think it's important to know in your adversary's mind the way they perceive things.

I do think that they react to our interference in both their elections. They were very -- one of the reasons they really didn't like Hillary Clinton is they found her responsible for some of the activity by the U.S. in their elections under the Obama administration. So I'm not saying it's morally equivalent --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But certainly Senator Paul, the United States has never --

PAUL: I'm not saying it's justified -- yes, go on.

TAPPER: -- done what Russia did. The United States has never done what Russia did. Go on, I'm sorry.

PAUL: I'm not saying -- yes, I'm not saying they're equivalent or morally equivalent but I am saying that this is the way the Russians respond. So if you want to know how we have better diplomacy or better reactions, we have to know their response.