Trump tells aides not to talk publicly about Russia policy moves
by Carol E. Lee, Courtney Kube and Kristen Welker / Mar.29.2018 / 2:15 PM ET
But Trump, irked by Putin's nuclear buildup, told him last week: "If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I'll win."
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country's fight against Russian-backed separatists, according to multiple senior administration officials.
Yet when the president finally authorized the major policy shift , he told his aides not to publicly tout his decision , officials said. Doing so, Trump argued, might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the officials.
"He doesn't want us to bring it up," one White House official said. "It is not something he wants to talk about."
The White House declined to comment.
Officials said the increasingly puzzling divide between Trump's policy decisions and public posture on Russia stems from his continued hope for warmer relations with Putin and stubborn refusal to be seen as appeasing the media or critics who question his silence or kind words for the Russian leader.
Critics have suggested that Trump's soft approach to Putin has nefarious roots that are somehow entwined with Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the federal investigation into whether the president's campaign colluded in that effort, something the president has repeatedly denied.
Behind the scenes, however, Trump has recently taken a sharper tone on Putin, administration officials said, but the shift seems more a reaction to the Russian leader challenging the president's strength than a new belief that he's an adversary. Putin's claim earlier this month that Russia has new nuclear-capable weapons that could hit the U.S., a threat he underscored with video simulating an attack, "really got under the president's skin," one official said.
So much so that after hearing Putin’s speech, Trump called the leaders of France, Germany and the U.K. to say the Russian leader sounded dangerous, so the four of them needed to stick together, according to a White House official familiar with the calls.
wo officials said Trump told Putin during a phone call last week after Putin's re-election: "If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I'll win." Trump added that he hoped that Putin’s comments were just election rhetoric and bragged that he’d just secured a $700 billion defense budget, the largest the U.S. has ever had, he said, according to one of the officials.
Afterward the president gave no hint of tensions when he told reporters that the two leaders had "a very good call" and that he plans to meet with Putin soon to discuss curtailing an arms race.
Within days, the split between Trump's Russia policy and public rhetoric was again on display.
The White House announced Monday that the U.S. would expel 60 Russian diplomats — the largest number since the Cold War — in response to Moscow's alleged nerve-agent attack in the U.K. on a former spy. It was the brashest U.S. brushback of Russia since Trump took office, yet the president didn't comment on it. And he insisted the White House's message include the idea that he "still wants to work with Russia."
Trump was similarly silent Thursday after Russia announced it would expel U.S. diplomats and close the American consulate in St. Petersburg in response to U.S. moves earlier this week.
A now familiar back-and-forth also played out behind the scenes over Trump's decision two weeks ago to levy new sanctions against Russia in response to Moscow's 2016 election meddling and costly worldwide cyberattack last year.
One official involved in the discussions said Trump pushed back on the sanctions proposals by saying Russia's meddling didn't affect the election, but began to relent after Putin's boast about nuclear weapons.
Since approving the sanctions, officials said Trump has given White House officials conflicting messages on whether they should showcase the move publicly. In some instances Trump says he's fine with it, while at other times he's directed aides not to talk about it, they said.
The president's aides have begun to choose their battles or shape their advice to his approach. While the phrase "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" was written on Trump's briefing materials for his call with Putin last week — as first reported by The Washington Post — the president's senior advisers also chose not to orally brief him on the talking point because they didn't think it would make a difference, officials said.
"He'd say what he wants anyway," one official said
Trump did congratulate Putin, to the dismay — though not surprise — of some of his top national security advisers. Aides said it's unclear if a meeting with Putin will happen because Trump suggests a meeting during nearly all of his calls with foreign leaders as a routine pleasantry.
An argument the president's national security advisers have found to be successful in trying to persuade Trump to adopt aggressive Russia policies is that Putin responds to strength and the way to achieve better relations is to be tougher on him, officials said.
One official described it as a way to "motivate" Trump on Russia.
"He digs in his heels," the official said. "He thinks a better relationship with Russia is good for the U.S., and he really believes he can deliver it."
Moreover, the official said, Trump wants a better U.S. relationship with Russia to prove he can accomplish it.
One official said Trump believes a stable U.S. relationship with Russia is important if the U.S. is going to find resolutions to other crisis, such as the conflict in Syria.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's outgoing secretary of state, led the effort to convince Trump to approve the new arms for Ukraine, officials said. The plan, which Russia opposed, included the sale of U.S.-made Javelin anti-tank missiles that Kiev has for years requested from Washington. President Barack Obama had repeatedly refused to approve Ukraine's request out of concern it would escalate U.S. tensions with Russia.
Tillerson scheduled a meeting with the president to discuss the plan shortly after the national security team approved it last summer, and he raised the issue with Trump in their regular meetings over the next few months, officials said.
As the policy sat on his desk awaiting his signature, the president expressed concern that it would escalate tensions with Russia and lead to a broader conflict, officials said. They said he also saw Ukraine as a problem for Europe and questioned why he should have to do something about it. And he insisted Ukraine purchase the arms from the U.S., not receive them for free, officials said, before signing off on the policy in December.
"Tillerson just wore him down," a White House official said.
But Trump's ambivalence didn't end, officials said. In one instance afterward, Trump complained to his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, that his decision could really escalate the situation in Ukraine to a war. McMaster, who was recently ousted, responded by telling the president there already is a war there, to which Trump shot back that the U.S. is not in it, an official said.
Last week, as the president's national security team finalized options for a response to the Russian nerve agent attack in the U.K., Trump voiced a now-familiar complaint. He said he wasn't going to take dramatic steps against Russia unless they were met with equal responses from America's European allies, aides said. His edict helped corral a response that included expulsions of more than 100 Russian diplomats in more than two dozen countries.
Trump was presented with three options last Friday during a meeting with his national security team, officials said. He chose the middle option, persuaded most by the idea that if Russia changed its behavior he wouldn't have needed the most strident measures and if it doesn't he has additional actions he can take, officials said.
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President Donald Trump's national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country's fight against Russian-backed separatists, according to multiple senior administration officials.
Yet when the president finally authorized the major policy shift , he told his aides not to publicly tout his decision , officials said. Doing so, Trump argued, might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the officials.
"He doesn't want us to bring it up," one White House official said. "It is not something he wants to talk about."
Why? He is afraid, afraid mind you, that he might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Why is he so terrified of publicly upsetting Putin? He has no problem of pissing on and pissing off every other world leader that he perceives as having offended him in even the slightest manner (many times just in his own mind), even our closest allies, yet never, ever Putin, at least not in public. What does Putin have on him? Until we find out what Putin is blackmailing him with, Trump is the most dangerous threat to America in our Nation. Yes, according to this article he told Putin he is ready for a nuclear arms race (something we do NOT need and can NOT afford, despite the new military budget which needs to be used to update most of our other military hardware and yes some of our nuclear forces and to pay and house our troops better.), but publicly he is all praise and sunny days and flowers and sucking up to his best buddy (or boss?) Vlad!
Then there is this:
But Trump's ambivalence didn't end, officials said. In one instance afterward, Trump complained to his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, that his decision could really escalate the situation in Ukraine to a war. McMaster, who was recently ousted, responded by telling the president there already is a war there, to which Trump shot back that the U.S. is not in it, an official said.
YES! Yes we are in it! We are very much in it on the side of the free Ukrainians against the Russian invaders as we should be goddamn it! Pull your head out of your ass on this one Trump and fuck what Putin thinks! I don't care how good you think his dick tastes or what he is blackmailing you with! This is more important then that!
Apparently Mueller is investigating who in the Trump campaign was involved in changing the GOP platform to be very friendly to Russia on the Ukraine issue.
Manafort and Gates. Has to be. They worked for Viktor Yanukovych for years as his PR guys and to do everything they could to corrupt the election in 2010 when he was election as the President of Ukraine in a very, very corrupt election. He paid them millions of dollars that were funneled through him from Putin because he was pro Putin and keeping him in power keep Ukraine solidly in Putin's camp and was another step in Putin's dream of rebuilding the old Soviet Union.
After the revolution in 2014 Yanukovych, Manafort and Gates all ran off to Moscow first and the Manafort and Gates returned to the US. The revolutionary government has turned up payment log books from the dictatorship government showing millions in illegal payments to Manafort and Gate's company. Then in 2016 Manafort and Gates, who Trump had never met or even knew of before and who no one knows who introduced them and why they were hired out of the blue with no notice, suddenly showed up as Trump's Campaign CEO and a Trump aide, just before the Convention. The Convention that suddenly softened it's platform toward Russia's occupation of Crimea and invasion of the Ukraine. Luckily Manafort has been indicted on multiple charges and Gates has flipped, so Mueller has a treasury trove of the Russian involvement eveidence in Trump's campaign.
The noose tightens.
The noose tightens.
Yes indeedy.
I tell you what's been freakin' frustrating though, is this: Paul Manafort has lobbied the US on behalf of Russian-sponsored causes for decades. It's what he did for a living, for crying out loud. It never has been a secret. He knows how to get long-shots elected to office, and he proved it with Viktor Yanukovych. The people of Ukraine would never have voted that man into office because they knew he was Putin's protégé. Enter Paul Manafort, who is an expert in utilizing social media to sway public opinion, and boom! say hello to Ukrainian President Yanukovych. Of course it didn't take the Ukrainians long to realize they had been hornswoggled, and Yanukovych was forcibly removed from office, and ran back home to Russia, where...no shit...Putin put him up in a government-funded palatial estate...complete with all the perks that 'government-funded palatial estate' implies.
But if you really want to read something nauseating, hit up Yanukovych's wiki link . Yeah, I know it's Wiki, but just humor me. Scroll down to 'Background to Removal' and begin reading. As you do that, start inserting Trump's name whenever you see VY's name. It'll take you about 5 sentences to realize that you are reading a Paul Manafort production of How To Dupe a Country into Electing the Worst Kind of President, EVER. From the media issues, to staff issues (he, too, went buck-wild with the nepotism/friend appointments), to the real reason behind the increase in military funding, to creating and implementing measures that were not only an about face from his campaign promises, but measures that clearly served not only his personal interest, but Putin's interests...and the list goes on. Ukraine's predicament was identical to what we are seeing in this country right now. I feel so strongly about it, that the first person to say it is all just a coincidence, is getting a cyber punch in the cyber face.
To making protests illegal and Trump has openly stated that he would like changes to the First Amendment so that the Free Press could be sued for libel for criticizing him. His tax cuts are consolidating wealth in a smaller group of the very rich giving them much more power over the rest of Americans. There really is a group of the very rich who believe that the rich should be the ones running the country and that the rest of the American people are basically the mob that need to be controlled like children and they are gaining power.
It's not too late to stop them or to take our government back or really just to stop them as it hasn't reached the point where they have complete control, yet. However it's going to take a lot more people to stop following the slogans and false shiny objects like they're coming to take your guns or if you vote for the wrong person they'll force prayers in public schools or make teenage girls have abortions against their will in their 8th month. While we are all fighting about these cultural issues, many of which do indeed need to be settled, while we are concentrating all of time on them, they are working behind the scenes quietly consolidating power.
They say vote for me and I'll stop abortion (they won't because they want to keep it as a slogan every election) and what they really do is to pass a massive tax cut for the very wealthy donors and corporations like they just did that are permanent and token ones for everyone else that will conveniently only stay in effect until just after the next election. They say look over here while I wave the flag and bible with one hand and ignore me while I pick your pocket with my other one. Then the next election they'll say something like if you vote for me I'll get prayer back into schools (they won't), so people will vote for them and when they get elected instead of doing what the promised they'll take away your grandparents Medicare. And the same people will vote for them again and again, as they continue to wave shiny objects in front of their voters that they have no intentions of doing, while they continue to shred the safety net in the interest of making the rich richer and we slip back into the late 1800's.
True, but some aspects they really did try to keep secret to cover up their crimes. That's why Manafort and Gates failed to register as foreign lobbyists and why they have been laundered at least $18 million from Ukraine and Russia through Brazil and the Grandines.
Uh....it's not wise policy to tell you enemies what you intend to do, when you intend to do it, what advantages you have, what disadvantages you have, or what you know about the enemies capabilities. You certainly don't tell the mass media, or untrusted underlings.
They day will come soon when Trump will basically tell Putin to go to Hell, then the liberals on this forum will start calling him a warmonger and sabre rattler. He will speak much stronger and forceful words than Obama's tepid and timid "you better stop that" to Putin a few years ago.
When you're talking about global politics and relationships with other countries it's always wise to tell everyone exactly what you're going to do and then do it. That builds trust and stability with our global partners. And it's even more important when dealing with enemies. Tell them what you'll do if they misbehave and then follow through with your threat if they do it anyway. Otherwise you create chaos and distrust as our partners can't believe what we say if we randomly change tack whenever it suits us and our enemies won't believe our threats. Trump already threatened "fire and fury" on N Korea if they tested anymore ballistic missiles, which Kim Jong Un did a few days later but experienced no follow through on those Trump threats, they were as empty as Trumps skull.
The White House has a President and a Spokesperson-those are the people that have the right to announce and talk about the policy and diplomatic things that the administration does. Decades of leaks from the White House has been good reading for the masses, and gives lazy reporters column inches, but makes the job of governing much harder. The President is under no requirement to allow his confidantes, those working closest to him, to go to the press with every detail of the thought processes in the Oval Office and West Wing are.
Absolutely! Trump keeps bringing up this ignorant example of Patton never telling the enemy what he was going to do next as if that has anything to do with international diplomacy when it certainly does not! Our allies and enemies both need to know exactly where we stand on global issues of trade, our national security, the national security of our allies and just what we are prepared to do to defend all three and more! The idea that we don't broadcast that far and wide is just an excuse for the truth that he hasn't the slightest fucking idea of what he is doing in any of those areas except making sure that whatever he does in any of them that they not offend Vladimir Putin! Of course you don't broadcast your immediate battle plans to an enemy when fighting in an in close war, but there is a huge difference between that and showing the world that you have no idea of what you are going to do next because you are obviously just making it all up as you go along and using the Patton example is raw ignorance of international relations on Trump's part and the part of anyone who buys into that piss poor analogy!
Why was Obama afraid to upset Putin?
funny how the same people who pretend to be so upset about this were fine when Obama ordered his administration to stand down from responding to Russian aggression. You can see the Stalinist influence in their brazen attempts to rewrite history.
He wasn't, and proved it many times. How long did it take for Obama to kick the russians out of the country after he had confirmation that Russia DID interfere in our election process? 48 hours. How long did it take trump to do the same thing? Over a year. Any questions? Thanks.
You mean when he pushed for stiff sanctions or when he kicked out dozens of Russian operatives? Trump doesn't even have the balls to tell Putin to his face to cut it out. He refuses to acknowledge Russia was even behind the election meddling. Trump is nothing but a Putin calk holster.
Um, about 2 years too late. He knew about it as far back as 2014 and did NOTHING about it until 2 months after Abuela lost.
Honest question....If Abuela had won, would you even care about Russian meddling? You probably would never have found out about it because there would be no damn way liberal media would even make a squeak about it.
That's like saying "If your daughter hadn't been raped at prom, you probably wouldn't have even made a squeak about the rape culture that goes on at US high schools...".
It's true, even though we're aware of it, it isn't a big deal until you wake up, pants down, bent over a dirty toilet seat with a sore ass.
bump
I don't think we're allowed to do that.
oh. I didn't know that
thanks for the advice. I won't do it again
Thanxs!
Excellent seed Randy, thanks for this.
Sadly, this doesn't surprise me.
Sure didn't seem to bother trump to publicly "agitate" just about every foreign leader on the planet, with an extra helping for our allies. Something to think about...
Trump has spent the last year+ in office attacking our intel agencies, top to bottom, over and over and over again, but he has never once even come close to having even the slightest bit of criticism for Putin, the leader of a nation that DID use cyber warfare against us in 2016. Republican's? Let that settle in for a moment. Trump trusts and has more faith in Russia than he does our own intel agencies. If that doesn't bother you, something is wrong and I can promise you this; it's not the 'leftists' or the media that is wrong, it's your fearful leader, trump.
.
I was going to put a list of people that trump has insulted on twitter here, but the list is a LOT longer than I thought it was, so here is the link...
I did a search of this list and Putin is mentioned ONE time, and it's not derogetory in any way. Russia is mentioned 14 times, some calling the story completely fake, or that Hillary colluded with Russia...apparently to help trump win the election? Anyway... With regards to that little chestnut, remember that trump ALWAYS accuses others of what he is most guilty of. If he is saying that Hillary colluded with Russia...you can bet your ass he colluded with Russia. It's called the Goebbels Rule...
Calling people Nazi's is not allowed on the forum according to the CoC.
Where did he call anyone a Nazi? He said certain political tactics were also used by a Nazi, but he didn't call anyone a Nazi. Are we now not allowed to call certain tactics used by the Nazis as "Nazi" in origin?
Is Trump a member of this forum? If not then it's perfectly OK to observe that he's a Nazi or at least behaves like one and shares some of their goals. Heck, even the Germans think Trump is a Nazi.....and it's not a surprise that the only book he keeps at his bedside is a collection of Hitler's speeches.
Whew, good thing I didn't call anyone a nazi then.
It's no different when your comrades accuse others of using the Saul Alinsky playbook....
But I guess you have no comment with what I posted? Why is there a complete lack of insults thrown at Putin? He has attacked Meryl Streep than he has attacked Putin... He has spent a YEAR attacking our own intel community, but never a disparaging word to an enemy of the USA? How can you justify that?
*crickets*
Calling an NT member a Nazi is not allowed according to the CoC. However it is my understanding that it is still allowed to compare a public figure such as a sitting world leader to a Nazi. Unless I am wrong? If I am then flag it and I will apologize for my mistake, but I believe that Donald Trump is on the same path as the Nazi's in the early 1030's, with the exception that I am still hoping that there are still enough Republicans in the House and Senate who have big enough balls (and I don't mean that in a sexist manner) to be Americans first and Party Members second.
Donald Trump does not just openly and shamelessly worship at the alter and feet of Authoritarian leaders such as Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Xi Jinping and even Kim Jung Un, his dream and goal, if he can figure out how to get away with it, is to be just like them. To create a government that gets handed down, not re-elected.
That's funny. That' what liberals are doing after Obama spent 8 years toadying to Putin.
Obama imposed sanctions on Russia after they invaded Crimea, ~4 months later, the Russian economy collapsed. And that's after the republicans said that sanctions were worthless and a wasted of time.. Better yet? After the sanctions had their desired effect? The right claimed it was really their idea. I will never vote republican again, I never want to be associated with a group that is that effing stupid.
Actually, that the sanctions were a slap on the wrist was understood internationally. As the left wing Gaurdian reported:
"The US and the European Union retaliated over the Crimea referendum by targeting sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials on Monday, a move widely greeted with scepticism as "toothless".... The relative weakness of the sanctions may reflect a sense in the US and European governments that Crimea is already lost .
Republicans wanted to sanction Putin personally. Obama was afraid.
Republicans wanted to arm Ukraine. Obama was afraid. Lucky for Ukraine, President Trump isn't afraid of Putin and his adminstration is willing to arm Ukraine.
Russia left Ukraine? Stopped it's offensive posture against the US? Putin lost power?
Instead, you picked a f group that is even stupider. Congrats!