Did Vladimir Putin want Donald Trump to win the 2016 presidential election?
I don’t know, let’s ask him.
Got that? When asked, at a press conference, televised around the globe, whether he wanted Trump to win, Putin responded:
Yes. Yes I did.
There is a non-negligible chance that if Democrats gain ground in the November midterms, Donald Trump’s presidency will be at risk. The U.S. intelligence community has unequivocally stated, on the record, and on too many occasions to count, that the Kremlin is targeting the midterms.
Just 48 hours after the Putin press conference, asked whether that assessment (i.e., that Russia is engaged in operations to influence the vote in November), the President said “no”.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders would try (and fail) to claim that Trump didn’t say what he in fact said there, but her protestations aside, the President said what he said.
Since then, Trump has threatened to revoke the security clearances of multiple officials who have challenged him on the Russia issue and reports from inside the White House suggested that Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats might lose his job after he first refuted claims Trump made in Helsinki and then laughed at the proposition of Vladimir Putin visiting the White House.
Given all of the above, try to appreciate the sheer absurdity inherent in the following tweet Trump sent out on Tuesday afternoon:
I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2018
So America is supposed to believe that the Kremlin is actively trying to engineer a Democratic sweep in the midterms because Moscow is concerned about how “tough” Trump has been on Russia.
That, even as Putin explicitly said “yes” to a question about whether he wanted Trump to win in 2016 and after Trump explicitly said “no” when asked if Russia was in fact trying to influence the midterms.
This has descended into utter farce.
"covfefe" gauge… pic.twitter.com/TO3RFFMsJ4
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) July 24, 2018
Actually, this makes a lot of sense. Put aside for a second the fact that you cannot believe anything that Trump says (and I realize that’s a huge thing to set aside), the goal of the Russians is not “support Donald Trump”, but rather “destabilize and undermine American democracy”. Support for Trump in 2016 was just a means to that end. In 2018, it may be the Russian viewpoint that providing support to the Democrats is the best way to achieve that end.
If the Democrats retake the House but not the Senate, it will be non-stop hearings and investigations (combined with Trumpian outbursts), but the Republicans in the Senate (probably) won’t vote to convict in the event of impeachment. If things are taken to the extreme, it also provides an opportunity for Trump to attack the very legitimacy of the 2018 elections. One of the big concerns going into election night on 2016 was that Trump might not accept the result of the expected Clinton victory and he would continue to decry the election as “rigged” and “stolen”. This could have cause enormous damage to people’s faith in the democratic process, but that would pale in comparison to a sitting president declaring the mid-term elections to be illegitimate — and that seems like a desirable outcome for the Russians.
lol. Trump doesn’t need the Russians. The Democrats have figured out a new way to lose. Oppose capitalism! If anyone told me 4 years ago that Trump would be President and the new litmus test for Democratic candidates is whether or not they support socialism, I would have said you were nuts. Absolutely bizarre. New Zealand is a beautiful country.
Chile – better food.
ROFLMAO.