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Carl Bernstein: From pandering to Putin to abusing allies and ignoring his own advisers, Trump's phone calls alarm US officials
CNN ^ | 06/29/2020 | Carl Bernstein

Posted on 06/29/2020 6:00:24 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.

The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.

These officials' concerns about the calls, and particularly Trump's deference to Putin, take on new resonance with reports the President may have learned in March that Russia had offered the Taliban bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan -- and yet took no action.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2020election; carlbernstein; clintonnonnews; cnn; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; foreignaffairs; media; mediawingofthednc; msm; partisanmediashills; presstitutes; putin; russia; smearmachine; trump
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To: LongWayHome

Half the people have an IQ below a 100.


61 posted on 06/30/2020 2:34:02 AM PDT by JohnnyP (Thinking is hard work (I stole that from Rush).)
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To: Skywise
Trump is the least of my worries. I’m watching the Democrats and most GOP capitulating to a communist overthrow of MY country and it’s pissing me off!

Thank you. /bow
62 posted on 06/30/2020 2:53:40 AM PDT by ssfromla
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To: fatman6502002

RE: Ah, I see I was correct about you. Thanks for the confrimation and yes radical leftist infiltrators like you can be spotted a mile away

There’s something wrong with your senses then. Better go see a doctor while you can.


63 posted on 06/30/2020 3:02:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Yadda yadda yadda leftist infiltrator.


64 posted on 06/30/2020 4:37:54 AM PDT by fatman6502002 ((The Team The Team The Team - Bo Schembechler circa 1969))
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To: SeekAndFind

Bertstein? The alcoholic who stole a horse drawn carriage from in front of the Plaza hotel and raced it through Central Park? Still off-the -wagaon? or is it off-the-carriage.


65 posted on 06/30/2020 4:41:34 AM PDT by ladyjane
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To: fatman6502002

I hope you get better.


66 posted on 06/30/2020 5:59:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m sure this is as accurate as anything else Bernstein has written.


67 posted on 06/30/2020 9:08:19 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: timestax
iiiiiiiiiiioooooo
68 posted on 06/30/2020 4:48:54 PM PDT by timestax
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