[Teacher317]

a reaction to Trump's refusal last week to publicly rebuke Putin for meddling in the 2016 presidential during a summit between the two

Really? Refusing to be oppositional during a meeting between heads of state is disqualifying for office? What must she make of Obama's refusal to investigate the meddling for 6 months, after being told about it, when not even in a diplomatic setting? Should he have stepped down as well?

[Zhang Fei]

[Really? Refusing to be oppositional during a meeting between heads of state is disqualifying for office? What must she make of Obama’s refusal to investigate the meddling for 6 months, after being told about it, when not even in a diplomatic setting? Should he have stepped down as well? ]

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The irony is that Trump was nice to both Xi and Putin in public, while curb-stomping them in private. The China tariff situation everyone knows about. But Trump has increased sanctions on Russia to the point where Putin, whose approval numbers were in the 60’s before, now sits at 49%. And that was before the new sanctions* kicked in. For major players on the world scene (i.e. not Kim Jong-un), Trump is always nice to them in public. But in the background ...

* And that may have, in part, been Trump’s reaction to Putin screwing him over at the summit and making him look like a stooge with an outrageous “offer” for a Ukraine referendum akin to Hitler “offering” a Sudetenland referendum. If Putin falls from power thanks to Trump putting his nuts in a vise, economically-speaking, this may have been the moment that Putin screwed himself by being too clever by half.