Trump Having Putin on Speed Dial Isn’t Funny, It’s Terrifying. | Typically, such revelations about private chats with one of our most dangerous enemies would have been the political end for any American politician. Not Trump.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-having-putin-on-speed-dial-isnt-funny-its-terrifying

40 Comments

  1. >Typically, such revelations about private chats with one of our most dangerous enemies would have been the political end for any American politician. Not Trump.

    Not for Trump’s supporters. Don’t give the orange nitwit credit. Lay the blame where it belongs; on his feckless supporters.

  2. Guaranteed that if Trump wins, he’ll send for his daddy to come over and have a sleep over at the WH. Trump will even give him the master bedroom.

    Maybe even throw Melania as a second course.

  3. Putin is like a sneaky coyote. Donald is like the stupid puppy being led out of the yard to be eaten.

    Our democracy isn’t the only one at stake next month. All of Europe will be next. The oligarchs want to dominate the world.

  4. Trump first dipped his toes into politics after his first visit to Russia in 1987. He’s been an asset for a long time.

  5. Because the GOP is now completely without shame or reason. They are a party of rabid, power hungry maniacs. The republicans seek power, and that’s it.

    They don’t care about our security. They don’t care about our quality of life. They don’t care about anything buy building an American Oligarchy, modeled after Putin’s Russia.

  6. Choice-of-SteinsGate on

    Trump/Vance and their followers are really escalating their use of Kremlin talking points this election cycle in order to rationalize their stance against democrat support for Ukraine in this war. Exploiting yet another conflict to try and bolster Trump’s campaign.

    Trump and Vance have pushed the idea of caving into Putin’s demands. Arguing that if we just give Putin what he wants, the war will end, la-dee-frickin-da. However, much like Churchill didn’t negotiate with Hitler because he was a dangerous expansionist looking to consolidate power through any means, while his overtures of peace were merely strategic moves, U.S leaders should take the same stance against Putin.

    That’s because Putin is also looking to consolidate power. His goal is to annex Ukraine in its entirety, rob its people of their independence, then continue with his “special military occupation,” err, I mean *operation* into other regions of Eastern Europe, where he will expand his oil empire and create soviet-like “spheres of influence” in every territory that his military seizes.

    So, this is as good a time as any to remind and inform people of just how great an asset Trump has been for Putin.

    While Trump was president, he frequently repeated Kremlin propaganda about things like the annexation of Crimea, about NATO in particular, and about the threat of Russian cyber attacks and election interference, even siding with Putin over our own intelligence agencies on the matter.

    Trump has repeated Putin’s false claims about Ukraine that served as a pretext for his invasion.

    Trump said that Putin did *”an amazing job of taking the mantle”* when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. And in 2016, during his presidential campaign, Trump encouraged the annexation of the territory and repeated a Kremlin talking point, saying, *”The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were.”*

    Trump also refused to condemn Russia for its attacks on Ukrainian military vessels in 2018.

    Ahead of the 2016 RNC, the Trump campaign blocked Republican party language that called for the U.S. to send weapons to Ukraine for its war against Russian proxies.

    Throughout the 2016 campaign, Trump cast doubt on Russian cyber attacks, while at a news conference in July 2016, he pleaded with Russia to continue its attacks, saying, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,”

    Trump capitalized off of Russia’s meddling in the election, and used hacked emails to attack Clinton on an almost daily basis. The Mueller report said Trump’s campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”

    Trump continued denying that Russia interfered in the election.

    After the 2016 election, The Trump transition team begged the Russians not to escalate in response to sanctions that were imposed under Obama. Michael Flynn personally asked the Russian ambassador not to escalate the situation because the incoming Trump admin intended to have a good relationship with Putin.

    Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he was considering lifting Russian sanctions, he said, *”If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?”*

    In 2017, lawmakers passed a bipartisan bill that included new Russian sanctions. Trump was reluctant to signing the bill and it was reported that the Trump admin demanded that the language in the bill be “watered down.” Those involved said that Trump would have likely shot them down if they didn’t pass with a veto proof majority in both houses.

    In response to Putin being labeled a “killer” for murdering his political opponents, Trump said in 2015, *”I haven’t seen any evidence that he killed anybody, in terms of reporters.”* Then again, in response to the same accusations against Putin in 2017, he said, *”There are a lot of killers. Do you think our country is so innocent?”*

    Trump later openly congratulated Putin on his 2018 election win, despite evidence showing it was illegitimate.

    Trump even considered returning multiple spy bases to Russia located in Maryland and New York after the Obama administration seized the compounds and expelled all Russian “diplomats.”

    Trump shared highly classified intelligence with two senior Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting in 2017.

    Trump has also repeatedly attacked NATO, aligning himself with Putin on one of his most important goals—the weakening of NATO. Trump has called NATO “obsolete,” and has reportedly, on several.occasions, said that he wants to withdraw from NATO entirely.

    Trump even proposed working directly with Russia on a cyber security taskforce. It received swift bipartisan backlash and lawmakers had to remind him that Russia was responsible for repeatedly engaging in cyber attacks against the U.S.

    The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Russian Oligarch, and Putin ally, Oleg Deripaska.

    Trump also tried to rescind Russian sanctions after defector, Sergei Skripal was poisoned in an assassination attempt by Russia.

    Trump abandoned our Kurdish allies and withdrew from Syria, which helped aid Russian proxy wars and gave Putin the opportunity to take over abandoned U.S. military outposts.

    Let’s not forget that Trump froze aid to Ukraine and delayed sales of important Javelin, anti-tank missiles when Ukraine was desperate for this aid in its fight against Russian proxies. Javelin missiles in particular have proved to be a major front-line defense for Ukraine against Russian military advances.

    Trump has called Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “genius,” and “savvy,” and has continuously threatened to not honor our commitment to any NATO countries who are “delinquent.” Encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants to allies who don’t contribute enough to military spending.

    Trump described NATO as if it was going bankrupt, saying, *”I went to NATO. And NATO was essentially going out of business ’cause people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down,”*

    Trump is severely ignorant of how NATO works.

    in 2014, NATO members agreed to move “toward” spending 2 percent of GDP on national defense by 2024.

    > The 2 percent is a benchmark that each member should spend on its own defense in order to be able to contribute to the joint defense of the alliance. However, the goal is voluntary, and there is no debt or “delinquency” involved.

    Despite what Trump thinks, each country’s spending doesn’t go towards some NATO “fund”, but towards their own defense.

    Trump has called the U.S., *”the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing.”* Still not understanding that the funding benchmark has to do with each individual country’s own defense spending. We’re not “paying for NATO.”

    NATO was established after WWII to help combat Soviet expansion. Republicans, much like Trump, have argued NATO is irrelevant now that the Soviet Union is gone. This is absurd.

    Trump and his supporters have the audacity to claim that if Trump were president, this war would have never happened. Not only is that an egregiously false and delusional hypothetical, but it’s very likely, judging by everything I’ve pointed out, that Trump helped accelerate this war in the first place, and if he is elected again, he will continue to help advance Putin’s autocratic, warmongering and violent agenda.

  7. Workaroundtheclock on

    So would the fact he is a rapist, conman, and weird as hell.

    I have little respect for those that vote for that guy. It says a lot about their character.

  8. restore_democracy on

    Trump’s supporters hate America and love Russia. They hate freedom and love dictatorships. They hate democracy and love authoritarianism.

  9. TAU_equals_2PI on

    But what IS funny is that this post about who Trump has on speed dial has an old rotary phone as its picture.

    *(For those younguns needing an explanation, rotary phones did not have any form of speed dial. In fact, if the number had a lot of 9’s and 0’s in it, there was enough time in between dialing each digit to go get a snack.)*

  10. justhavingfunMT on

    Hey, Daily beast, are you going to take any credit for the fact that he is still sliming up our country. You’ve been on your knees giving him bj’s for the last 8 plus years.

  11. Excuse me, Mr. Media, but have you tried posing the question of just what the fuck they were talking about and driven it home?

  12. Static-Stair-58 on

    I hope these stories pile up every day until the election. Fuck October surprises. I want an October tidal wave of damning information; that finally buries this traitorous tumor on our country.

  13. It would be for me. But I had written him off as a baboon and a traitor years ago because I have at least half of a functioning brain.

  14. RevivedMisanthropy on

    Putin? Didn’t he recently threaten the US and NATO allies with nuclear weapons?

  15. HRC warned everyone in 2016 but nope. it was more important for protest voters to poke Clinton in the eye.

  16. WardenEdgewise on

    Maybe it’s different for Trump, but I absolutely refuse to have my employer on “speed dial”.

  17. Former Trump supporter here! I used to support him losing now I support Kamala Harris winning. I’m so clear headed it feels good!

  18. There’s a reason Trump took all those top secret documents to Mar-a-lago. He’s likely already shared all the intel with Putin. It’s sickening behavior that puts all of us and our security at risk.

  19. Shot-Entertainer-174 on

    Butt Crush this Cheeto to a fine orange powder with and blow it off our sofa

  20. Competitive_Heat6805 on

    Purim & Russia have more in common with Xi & China because they’re both communist, while Trump & MAGA think they have more in common with Putin & Russia because they share the same complexion.

  21. Adventurous-Depth984 on

    They were pals before his presidency and during it. What makes anyone think it’d stop?

  22. pretzelogically on

    We place this orange face idiot as asset to disturb republican party 2016 primary to promote anti-west propaganda. Sips vodka. Who thought stupid man would get stupid american people destroy entire political party? Hearty drunken vodka fueled laugh ensues.

  23. This is especially true as a former President that was 100% going to run for reelection if he lost. Who knows what real life consequences these phone calls have had, outside of Russia getting COVID tests.

  24. Didn’t Trump say that if he was able to talk to Putin, he could end the invasion of Ukraine in a day?

  25. everyday95269 on

    Add this to the stash of to top secret documents at his hotel…. And make a connection.

  26. everyday95269 on

    Add this to the stash of to top secret documents at his hotel…. And make a connection.

  27. Shouldn’t all US official political conversations be recorded? Why are they private?

  28. Plastic-Trifle-5097 on

    He doesn’t know basic politics, like who would be third in line for president. His base either knows less or doesn’t care because…. Space lasers, dogs and cats, qanon, insert lie here instead of policy.

    So you deal with a lot of ignorance from the top down. They made shirts saying they are voting for a felon, guy in the diaper, would rather be Russian than a democrat.

    Very different from the Republican Party prior to 2016 they’ve been infiltrated by an agent.

  29. It’s a cult, nothing less than a case of hating liberals and this group of MAGA followers are not stupid, not uneducated but they are in a cult of personality that could bring down our 235 years of Democracy.
    I believe it may take a generation to convince these people that Trump was a paid agent of Vladimir Putin.