Trump seems to always kiss up to Putin
The President of the United States can say anything he darned well pleases.
Growing numbers of Americans, though, wish he wouldn’t.
He’d been handed a National Security brief ahead of his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. Instead of using a little restraint — he blurted out something he’d been warned not to.
“DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” appeared in that brief in ALL CAPS.
Putin’s attempts to disrupt our 2016 presidential election, and those poisonings of his detractors in England, were said to be enough for President Trump to steer clear of offering Putin any kudos that signaled his pleasure with Putin’s recent re-election.
Trump ignored the request.
“I had a call with President Putin and CONGRATULATED him on his victory,” he proudly told reporters hours later.
He concluded by bragging that it had been a “very good call.”
We’ve all learned that anything that Trump says he’s done, or says he’s going to do, is, according to him, “good.”
There’s nothing new about that.
He’s a sucker for a compliment — especially when he’s the one doing the complimenting.
But discounting the sincere wishes of his national security team didn’t win him many compliments beyond his own.
Sure, President Obama congratulated Putin for his re-election back in 2011. But the Kremlin hadn’t tried to disrupt America’s elections back then.
And those people who’re quick to bring up Obama’s call fail to mention that the State Department did note “the conditions under which the (Russian) campaign was conducted, the partisan use of government resources and procedural irregularities on election day.”
And even when George W. Bush claimed, “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul,” there was no sign that Putin had tampered with our 2000 presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court, maybe — but not Putin.
Trump’s smugness about his call with Putin vanished when the Washington Post reported that he’d gotten that “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” request in that national security brief — but he simply ignored it.
He was said to have been furious, and his White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, was said to have been livid when that Washington Post story was published.
Trump and Kelly both know that only a few people would have been made aware of the directive prior to the call to Putin.
So, The Great Tattletale-hunt of 2018 was set into motion.
Meanwhile, when pundits fanned out on 24-hour news channels, they chided Trump for offering his congratulations to Putin, while he avoided confronting him about his election meddling.
Mr. Trump has had a long history of failing to hold Mr. Putin to accountable for his bad behavior.
Instead, he’s been quite complimentary of him.
The New York Times maintains a list of the more than 400 people, places and things Trump has insulted on Twitter.
He’s insulted Saturday Night Live and Alec Baldwin — but not Putin. He’s taken Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep and Samuel L. Jackson to task — but not Putin.
He’s fired insults in the directions of Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and even the Pope — but not Putin.
He’s cast aspersions at Mexico, Britain, Iran, North Korea and Kim Jung-un — but he’s never had anything bad to say about Russia or Vladimir Putin.
He could’ve been critical of Putin for his fake election. One that made it impossible for one of his opponents to win.
Trump, instead, decided he’d buddy up to a man who has little respect for — no, shows disdain for — our democracy.
Those Republicans who were critical of that phone call, still stopped short of theorizing why Trump seems to always avoid being the least bit critical of Putin.
Ex-CIA director, John Brennan, no fan of Trump, has his own theory.
“I think he’s afraid of the president of Russia. The Russians may have something on him personally, that they can always roll-out and make his life more difficult,” Brennan says.
He’s saying what lots of people have been saying, privately, for a longtime.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.