Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Presidents Trump’s defense of Putin is disturbing
Conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly rarely delivers insights supported here.
Hey, pigs fly and hell freezes over.
Life finds O’Reilly sharing common ground about the latest political dustup.
The king of cable news interviewed President Donald Trump in a pre-Super Bowl conversation and O’Reilly trapped the president in another of his Russian-loving trysts for President Vladimir Putin.
Trump voiced respect for Putin then O’Reilly pulled tight his interviewer noose.
“He’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer,” O’Reilly pressed.
“There are a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”
Trump talked himself into another corner with O’Reilly.
“Take a look at what we’ve done too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said, alleging that he opposed the Iraq invasion. “I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.”
“A lot of mistakes,” Trump continued, “OK, but a lot of people were killed. So a lot of killers around, believe me.”
Trump appeared to offer a “killer” label for former President George Bush who sent troops into Iraq. An important news item arrived Monday as the Kremlin requested an apology from Fox News.
“We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting and, honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on a conference call.
Nyet. Nyet. And, nyet comrade.
O’Reilly and Fox News should tell Peskov, Putin and all of his Russian killers to take a flying leap into the Moskva River.
In 2015, Trump told ABC News that he did not know whether Putin had killed journalists.
“If he has killed reporters I think that’s terrible. But this isn’t like somebody that stood with a gun and he’s taken the blame or he’s admitted that he’s killed,” defended Trump.
“It’s never been proven that he’s killed anybody, so you know you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country. He has not been proven that he’s killed reporters.”
For that matter, Trump, despite numerous flirtations that three to five million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election and all of them Democrats, proved nothing. In fact, Trump promised an executive order to launch an investigation about the nefarious election results but has moved on.
Trump may not be killing journalists but the president has drawn a line in the sand against Fourth Estate representatives, people charged with delivering truth, insight and opinions about both government and society.
Of course, blood stains the hands of U.S. interests at home and abroad as mistakes in judgment dot our country’s landscape. Hopefully, U.S. mistakes move us toward reparation, reconciliation and increased awareness for considering all options before action.
Trump’s defense of Russia, especially with criticism about the United States, offers an act of verbalized treason. His words may not serve as attempt to overthrow our government but Trump’s allegations show an extreme lack of national diplomacy.
Russian-supporting comments by Trump deserve immediate rebuke.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) told ABC’s “This Week” that no comparison existed between the two world powers.
“There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom-loving nation in the history of the world, and the murderous thugs that are in Putin’s defense of his cronyism,” Sasse scolded.
Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a Republican presidential candidate frequently berated by Trump during the Republican primary season, responded.
“We are not the same as #Putin,” Rubio wrote on Twitter. “When has a Democratic political activists been poisoned by the GOP or vice versa?”
Trump espouses an idea that U.S. and Russian forces can work together in a fight against ISIS. Sounds potentially positive for people who want to eradicate terrorism but U.S. officials should push back against bedding the Russian leader.
O’Reilly gets complete support about this issue. Vladimir Putin is a killer. U.S. officials should offer no negotiation with terrorists or murderers.