Ayeyayay, this guy
by digby
In this Reuters interview he pretty much says that he thinks there's nothing wrong with working with a foreign power with a sophisticated spying apparatus to destroy your political opponents.
ON WHETHER HE WAS AWARE HIS SON DONALD TRUMP JR. WAS MEETING WITH A RUSSIAN LAWYER
"No. That I didn’t know. Until a couple of days ago, when I heard about this. No I didn’t know about that."
"Look - that campaign ... I actually always thought I’d win, to be honest with you, because I’ve been winning my whole life, to be honest with you, but we started a campaign as a non-politician, and many people were skeptical. Some weren’t, some people who know me weren’t ... but many were skeptical. And it was a wild time. And we would meet with many people."
"That same meeting: a person comes in, sits, leaves, quickly. It was a 20-minute meeting, I guess, from what I’m hearing. Many people, and many political pros, said everybody would do that. If you got a call and said, 'Listen I have information on Hillary and the DNC,' or whatever it was they said, most people are going to take that meeting, I think."
“I think many people would have held that meeting."
“And you have to understand, when that took place, this was before Russia fever. There was no Russia fever back then, that was at the beginning of the campaign, more or less. There was no Russia fever."
“Most of the phony politicians who are Democrats who I watched over the last couple of days – most of those phonies that act holier-than-thou, if the same thing happened to them, they would have taken that meeting in a heartbeat."
This is an admission as far as I am concerned that even if he didn't know (which, of course, he did) he doesn't believe there's anything wrong with it and that it's just fine if people do this in the future.
Let's just accept that's what h's saying and go from there. The president believes that working with a foreign government to disrupt our democratic processes and take power is standard operating procedure.
If that isn't an impeachable offense I don't know what is.However, since his party is supporting him all the way, it's clear that this is now an entirely mainstream position and that we can expect them to do it going forward. (It will not be acceptable for their opponents for obvious reasons.
In the interview Trump said again that he asked President Putin twice if he had meddled, even cleverly asking it in two different ways, and he said absolutely not. Then he added this interesting little observation:
“Somebody did say if he did do it, you wouldn’t have found out about it. Which is a very interesting point.”
I wonder if that "somebody's" name is Vlad.("Believe me, Donald, if I had done what they say I'd done, you would never know it. I am KGB. I am superman.")
Is there really any doubt that Trump admires the Russian government more than his own, simply because the government and state media unctuously flatter him like a royal prince? I guess that's fine. People have a right to admire anyone they choose. But you have to admit that it's more than a little bit unusual for a US president to feel this way. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say it's unprecedented.
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