It Should Have Been Easy

I watched the Putin-Trump press conference today. And as one of the pundits said “A lot of people will remember where they were when they saw this.” Yeah, believe it or not, I will. It somehow seems that important.

Because the big reaction to this press conference came from a couple questions asked by American reporters. They were both very good questions. Really. But each of them really set up a softball for Trump. All he had to do was take it. But he didn’t.

Here’s the first question, from Jeff Mason of Reuters:

QUESTION: Thank you. Mr. President, you tweeted this morning that it's U.S. foolishness, stupidity and the Mueller probe that is responsible for the decline in U.S. relations with Russia. Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular? And if so, what would you -- what would you consider them -- that they are responsible for?

It should have been easy. All the President had to say was something like “Of course. They are suspected of a lot of really bad things, horrible things, that you’ve all read about. These things are contrary to what Americans value, so this has really hurt our relationship. But still, I think we have to get past that, and look to the future.”

See how easy that was? He didn’t even have to name the things, like: shooting down passenger airliners, killing journalists, jailing political opponents, meddling with our elections. He could have kept it very general, then it could easily have been spun as Trump being tough on Putin. And all would have been fine for him.

But he didn’t do anything like that. What did he say? Here it is:

TRUMP: Yes I do. I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we've all been foolish.

“Both sides.” Of course…

The other question, from Jonathan Lemir of the AP, was this:

QUESTION: Thank you. A question for each president; President Trump, you first. Just now, President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. What -- who -- my first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? My second question is would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again?

Again, it should have been easy. Something like: “Of course I believe my intelligence community. And as I told  him in our meeting, this is unacceptable to the US, and it has to stop--now. There is no place in our relationship for this.”

See how easy it was? He could even have told Putin ahead of time something like “I may have to hit you hard on a few things, just to save face, but I don’t really mean it.”

But he didn’t do that. Here’s his answer.

TRUMP: So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server -- haven't they taken the server. Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? I've been wondering that, I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be. But I really do want to see the server.

But I have -- I have confidence in both parties. I -- I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don't think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Where are those servers? They're missing; where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton's e-mails? 33,000 e-mails gone -- just gone. I think in Russia they wouldn't be gone so easily. I think it's a disgrace that we can't get Hillary Clinton's 33,000 e-mails. So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.

Yeah-- asked about Russian meddling, he immediately goes to Hillary’s emails. Yes, he really did that. And said he believes "both sides." He believes Putin as much as his own hand-picked intelligence community. Apparently he believes Putin is more truthful than our own intelligence experts.

You can interpret this however you want. But I’ll be honest. Before today, I kinda figured the idea of kompromat and Russian blackmail of Trump were just conspiracies. Now, I’m not so sure. Because I can’t really conjure up any other reason for our President to act so ass-kissing to a dictator such as Putin.

Believe what you want. But if you aren’t wondering, just a little bit, if Trump is either compromised, stupid, senile, unstable, or all of the above, then maybe Trump really could shoot a guy on 5th Avenue, and I’m pretty sure you’d still be Ok with him.