re: Trump " concerned Russia might interfere with midterms to help Democrats"

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I need him to make up his mind already. Did Russia interfere in 2016 or is it 2018?

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President Trump has said over and over and over and over and over again that he accepts the IC's conclusion that Russians tried to meddle in the 2016 election.

President Trump has also made it crystal clear over and over and over and over and over again that when he says the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt, he is referring to the Mueller investigation of collusion between Russia and Trump or his campaign.

Why do you keep trying to muddy the water by pretending that President Trump hasn't been crystal clear?

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1/ It is pretty obvious that any Russian interference in 2016 occurred against Trump. Why would Putin want to back a new guy. He already had a long history of getting what he wanted out of Hillary, hell, she was involved in selling 25% of our uranium to Russia. Why would he want to eliminate a good business partner and put a macho swinging dick in the White House? That's just stupid.

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To clarify on this point, I think that this is a much more likely scenario for the dossier:

1/ Hillary's campaign wanted dirt on Trump and contacted Steel

2/ Steel, using his Russian contacts from his time running the Russian field office for MI6, contacts his old Russian buddies saying "I need some dirt..."

3/ The russian intelligence guys have a meeting and say "hey, MI6 wants to start some shite with this Trump guy... What should we do?"

4/ The head guy contacts Putin and asks how he should proceed. Putin is like "Totally! Let's make up some crazy pissing stories and derail his campaign. That guys a total hardass. Who needs that shite?"

5/ Steel gets his *dossier* and being a mindless globalist probably even believes it.

6/ He shares it and nothing happens. Then Comey- in his own bout of existential fear decides that it is mission and duty to disseminate it by any means necessary so he leaks it to some media friends thereby creating the circular reporting that resulted in the FISA warrant. the end. here we are.

Seems just as likely as your side's' story honestly.

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I can’t wait for your reaction to his re-election

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It’s cute that y’all think Trump is getting re-elected.

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I can’t wait for your reaction to his re-election

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It’s cute that y’all think Trump is getting re-elected.

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I can appreciate your denial of the obvious.

All you fricking lying sore loser lefties would probably commit suicide if you had to acknowledge the reality that Trump is going to win in 2020.

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We aren’t challenging Russia in Crimea, nor should we.

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Yes we are. We are significantly funding their defense through money and arms. Additionally, and more importantly, Trump has put Putin on the defense regarding Crimea. He has refused to recognize their authority which means that he holds a valuable card. He might one day recognize Russia's authority there BUT I guarantee you it will come with something of benefit to the US. Honestly, that's all I care about so go Trump...

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It’s cute that y’all think Trump is getting re-elected.

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Who will beat him


I cant wait to hear this

I think it is pretty clear Trump has not been as tough on Russia as he should be. Some examples are from this excellent article linked below.

LINK

Cut and paste edited slightly for brevity - full version is above.

Now that he’s in office, Trump’s ties to Russia have attracted close scrutiny, and he has found his room to maneuver with Putin sharply constrained by his party. In early 2017, Congress passed sanctions to retaliate against Russia’s election attack. Trump lobbied to weaken them, and when they passed by vetoproof supermajorities, he was reportedly “apoplectic” and took four days to agree to sign the bill even knowing he couldn’t block it. After their passage, Trump has failed to enforce the sanctions as directed. Trump also moved to return to Russia a diplomatic compound that had been taken by the Obama administration; announced that he and Putin had “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to jointly guard against “election hacking”; and congratulated the Russian strongman for winning reelection, despite being handed a card before the call warning: “Do not congratulate.”

More recently, as Trump has slipped the fetters that shackled him in his first year in office, his growing confidence and independence have been expressed in a series of notably Russophilic moves. He has defied efforts by the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, and Canada to placate him, opening a deep rift with American allies. He announced that Russia should be allowed back into the G7, from which it had been expelled after invading Ukraine and seizing Crimea. Trump later explained that Russia had been expelled because “President Obama didn’t like [Putin]” and also because “President Obama lost Crimea, just so you understand. It’s his fault — yeah, it’s his fault.” During the conference, Trump told Western leaders that Crimea rightfully belongs to Russia because most of its people speak Russian. In private remarks, he implored French president Emmanuel Macron to leave the European Union, promising a better deal. Trump also told fellow leaders “NATO is as bad as NAFTA” — reserving what for Trump counts as the most severe kind of insult to describe America’s closest military alliance. At a rally in North Dakota last month, he echoed this language: “Sometimes our worst enemies are our so-called friends or allies, right?” Last summer, Putin suggested to Trump that the U.S. stop having joint military exercises with South Korea. Trump’s advisers, worried the concession would upset American allies, talked him out of the idea temporarily, but, without warning his aides, he offered it up in negotiations with Kim Jong-un.

There is one other way in which Trump’s behavior has changed in recent months. As Mueller has plunged deeper into his murky dealings with Russia, the president has increasingly abandoned the patina of innocence. Trump used to claim he would be vindicated, and his advisers insisted his periodic fits sprang from an irrational resentment that Mueller was tarnishing his election and obscuring his achievements. Trump barely puts much effort into predicting a clean bill of health anymore. He acts like a man with a great deal to hide: declining to testify, dangling pardons to keep witnesses from incriminating him, publicly chastising his attorney general for not quashing the whole investigation, and endorsing Russia’s preposterous claims that it had nothing to do with the election at all. (“Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” he tweeted last month, contradicting the conclusion of every U.S. intelligence agency.) Trump’s behavior toward Russia looks nothing like that of a leader of a country it attacked and exactly like that of an accessory after the fact.

“After” could be optimistic. The logic of Russia’s role in helping Trump has not changed since the election. If Trump’s campaign hired hackers to penetrate his opponent’s communications or voting machines, they would risk arrest. But Putin can hire hackers with impunity. Mueller can indict Russians, and he has, but he can’t arrest them unless they decide to leave Russia. Outsourcing Trump’s hacking work to Putin made perfect sense for both men in 2016, and still does. And if you’re Putin, embarking upon a coveted summit with the most Russophilic president since World War II, who is taking a crowbar to the alliance of your enemies, why wouldn’t you help him in 2018 and 2020? Ever since the fall of 2016, when Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell privately turned down an Obama-administration proposal for a bipartisan warning to Russia not to interfere in the election, the underlying dynamic has been set: Most Republicans would rather win an election with Putin’s help than lose one without it. The Democrats, brimming with rage, threaten to investigate Russian activity if they win a chamber of Congress this November. For Putin to redouble his attack — by hacking into voting machines or some other method — would be both strategic and in keeping with his personality. Why stop now? Meanwhile, the White House has eliminated its top cybersecurity position. That might simply reflect a Republican bias against bureaucratic expertise. But it might also be just what it looks like: The cop on the beat is being fired because his boss is in cahoots with the crooks.

Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, according to Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, Israeli intelligence officials gathered at CIA headquarters, where they were told something astonishing: Russia, the agency believed, had “leverages of pressure” over the incoming president. Therefore, the agency advised the Israelis to consider the possibility that Trump might pass their secrets on to Russia. The Israelis dismissed the warning as outlandish. Who could believe that the world’s most powerful country was about to hand its presidency to a Russian dupe? That the United States government had, essentially, fallen? A few months later, Trump invited Russian diplomats into the Oval Office. He boasted to them that he had fired “nut job” James Comey. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” At the same meeting, Trump passed on to the Russians a highly sensitive intelligence secret Israel had captured from a valuable source inside ISIS. It was the precise danger Israel had been cautioned about.

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I think it is pretty clear Trump has not been as tough on Russia as he should be. Some examples are from this excellent article linked below.

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When you approach a large and formidable enemy you have to play a nuanced game and show respect if for no other reason than they are one of the few world powers that could bring about WW3. They are powerful enough to end this world. Trump knows what it like to sit in a room with huge egos and he treats the weak as weak and the strong as strong because that how you beat them both.

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I need clarity !!

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You come to an anonymous message board to declare your need for clarity from someone that doesn't even post here.

That's actual derangement.