Going back to the press conference after the Helsinki meeting between President Trump and Russian strongman Vladimir Putin: Trump famously tossed the US intelligence services under the tram to remind us Putin was very forceful in his denial Russia hacked our 2016 election.
"I will tell you this," I believe is how Trump put it, "I don't see why it would be Russia."
Putin stared straight ahead.
Based on this performance, we'd have to conclude either Trump didn't read the indictment of the Russian intelligence officers, or he failed to understand it. Mistakes made by the Russians led directly to the Moscow building where this all took place, but Trump was apparently not convinced.
(Presidential motto: Don't confuse me with the facts.)
Later, safely back in this country, Trump stumbled through a written statement revealing his belated support for the CIA and others. Turns out, he'd planned to let Putin have it with both barrels, but misspoke in Helsinki. He'd meant to say "wouldn't" instead of "would."
He explained all this with little emotional affect.
But if this is what really happened—a Freudian slip of historic magnitude, the sort of verbal mishap that empires live or die from—a volatile blowhard like Trump would have raged at the unfairness of losing an opportunity to stick it to Putin in public. He'd be couch-jumping and scenery chomping to reveal his profound disappointment. You could expect a bully like Trump to be downright scary!
Yet he chose this moment to be calm and subdued and reasonable, in short, to be "presidential."
(Trump portrays himself in "presidential mode" at some rallies, marching back and forth like that old-time mechanical bear in the arcade shooting game—blast the bear, he'd spin around and stagger in the opposite direction until hit again.)
It's not clear if even Trump expected to be believed, because this convenient, Monday-morning explanation is not very likely. Coming after everything he'd said before, the "would" made perfect sense.
On the other hand, if he'd been pointing out how every country in the world hacked our election, it might make sense to say Russia was likely to be on that list as well—with their crime nicely diluted. Everybody does it, why not them?
Not what happened, though.
Trump likes to point out he's tougher on Russia than anybody. But as I recall it, he first said that before he bothered to institute sanctions that Congress had authorized much earlier.
By now, Russia should probably be buried beneath sanctions triggered by a variety of actions: the election hacking, the annexation of Crimea, interference in Ukraine, the poisoning of ex-spies in Great Britain, their deadly support of the Assad regime in Syria.
Maybe it's time for Trump to reverse directions violently, to stop sucking up to Putin (because he gets so much criticism for that), and make one of those catastrophic blunders that start world wars.
Pretty sure he has it in him.
No comments:
Post a Comment