Trump lost his bluster, was as meek as a kitten with Putin
Even Vladimir Putin may have been taken aback by Donald Trump’s performance Monday after their summit in Helsinki, Finland.
It was the first formal one-on-one meeting the two have had since Trump’s inauguration, and Americans have no way of knowing what their president said to his Russian counterpart behind closed doors.
But Trump’s comments at the subsequent news conference were jawdropping enough. It actually fell to Putin to reassure the international community that Trump hadn’t gone entirely rogue. One reporter asked Putin whether Trump had indicated any sympathy for Russia’s perspective on the Crimean peninsula, which it forcefully annexed, from Ukraine, in 2014.
“He continued to maintain that it was illegal to annex it,” Putin said.
I guess we’ll have to take Putin’s word for it, because Trump made one thing clear: He does.
At the end of the news conference, Trump was asked whether he believes Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. America’s intelligence agencies have concluded that such interference took place; Putin, however, has denied it.
The president of the United States rallied to Russia’s defense. He explained that he didn’t see any reason Russia would do such a thing, and that Putin had said his nation didn’t.
“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said.
I’m not sure I would describe such comments as treasonous, per se, or the worst Trump has made since becoming president. But the news conference was disastrous for both the presi-
dent and the Republican leaders who have loyally supported him so far.
It’s not entirely clear why Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election, or whether Trump, a real estate mogul who once envisioned a Trump Tower in Moscow, himself colluded with their efforts. But there’s no question that Russia meddled in some way, for some reason. America’s intelligence agencies came to that conclusion even before Trump was inaugurated, and it wasn’t exactly a surprising revelation. Russia is among our geopolitical adversaries, and Putin has a record of interfering with other nations’ elections.
Flattery turns his head
Trump, moreover, can be manipulated via flattery. We know that because the ex-KGB agent did so already, perhaps accidentally. In December 2015, he was asked for his views on Trump and responded by describing him as talented and lively, and the leader in the presidential race.
Putin was careful to note that he was agnostic about Trump’s candidacy; such questions, he explained, are for American voters to decide. But Putin’s comments were in Russian, and Trump translated them a bit differently. In his telling, Putin had praised him as a “brilliant” man, who would be a strong leader like himself, rather than a weak one, like Barack Obama. If elected, Trump argued, he and Putin would probably have a productive relationship, based on mutual respect for each other as strong leaders.
Whether the United States wants a more friendly relationship with Russia is, of course, debatable. That would certainly serve Russia’s interests, but still. And even if you like Putin, it would be naive to trust him. Trump, however, clearly didn’t realize that.
And so on Monday, the entire world saw the American president humiliated by a hostile foreign leader. In the presence of Putin, Trump showed none of his usual bravado or bluster, which was on display for most of this international trip. In fact, he was as meek as a kitten. We already knew that our president was pro-Russia, but the Helsinki summit was a staggering display of weakness, on his part. On Tuesday, Trump attempted to backtrack, saying he accepts the American intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did attempt to meddle and that he merely got his words mixed up. But the damage had already been done.
Not to be ignored
Putin, of course, is able to exploit the kind of weakness Trump has shown. He’s already done so, in fact. And the Republican leaders who have loyally supported Trump, thus far, have to be realistic about the implications of that. The president might not be loyal to Russia, exactly, but he wasn’t particularly loyal to the United States this week. Republicans can ignore the concerns that many Americans have, after witnessing Trump’s defense of Putin. But they shouldn’t.