Donald Trump is a businessman, a reality television star and a master of self-promotion.
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“I’m going to take a look at it”, Trump said in an interview broadcast on July 31 on the USA television program This Week. The media has made this into an issue about Trump’s ignorance about basic facts, when it’s really more evidence of Trump’s appalling policy views about Russian Federation.
“OK, well, he’s there in a certain way”, Trump replied. He’s not going into Ukraine, okay?
Interpreting Trump’s statements – what he understands about the current status of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, and how it would change in a Trump administration – is hard given the fractured nature of the exchange.
Chaly said it was a fact that Russian troops are in Ukraine, and went on to say that Ukrainian officials are now concerned about what could happen after the November presidential elections in the United States.
Stephanopoulos responded: “Well, he’s already there, isn’t he?” Given that Trump brags incessantly about his charitable giving, there should be loads of beneficiaries, so I’ll go with the theory he’s not been charitable at all since 2008. You have Obama there. And frankly, that whole part of the world is a mess under Obama with all the strength that you’re talking about and all of the power of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and all of this. That way. And when it comes to showing “strength” in the face of Putin, Trump’s idea of strength is ceding Crimea to Russian Federation.
Ukrainian military intelligence, which has spies on the ground in Donetsk and Luhansk, reported about 7,000 Russian army soldiers in the region, in addition to perhaps up to 25,000 so-called Russian volunteers that had arrived to the region to fight for the Russian cause.
One report on Paul Manafort’s denial of Russian interference in his interview with Meet The Press, according to Inquisitr, not only addresses the connection but it also suggests that without being consistent or even having a platform at all, Donald Trump seems to suddenly know what to do about the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine thanks to Paul Manafort.
The problem, though, is that this clearly isn’t true. Trump then backpedaled when Stephanopoulos pointed out that Russian troops had been there for almost two years.
It occurred as thousands of Russian troops were controlling Crimea.
Trump and Putin have had a long time friendship and public admiration for each other.
I’m talking about the apparent lack of knowledge that Trump exhibits on anything Russia-related, like, for instance, the fact that Moscow has been supporting separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine for over two years. “We have to show some strengths”, he said in the 2014 Today show interview.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you have no relationship with Putin, then why did you say in 2013, I do have a relationship. In the final version of the Republican platform, the words about weapons were dropped and replaced by the term “appropriate assistance”. President Bill Clinton spoke with Boris Yeltsin constantly during his presidency on subjects from strengthening Russia’s institutions to Saddam Hussein’s alleged WMD program. I mean he was saying very good things about me, but I don’t have a relationship with him.
In an interview, with The New York Times just before the Republican convention, Trump said that if Russian Federation attacked North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member nations he would decide whether to come to their assistance only if he decided that they had “fulfilled their obligations to us”. Unlike George W. Bush, we haven’t looked into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul, so we can’t be sure what he thinks about a Hillary presidency.
This is whitewashing of a blatantly illegal territory grab by Putin, one that nearly no countries on Earth recognize. First, he said, the United States can’t force Russian Federation out of Crimea without starting a full-fledged war. He said he would like to hear from me.
That’s the key point here.
Russian Federation recklessly buzzes American and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation aircraft and ships, and threatens European nations if they host NATO’s missile defense system.
Trump repeatedly said he would release his tax returns. We also know the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking at two Russian government agencies for hacking the DNC. We know this because he’s even expressed personal admiration for Vladimir Putin.
The big one. The first time a would-be US President suggested defence of its major allies under the 28-state collective alliance was conditional.
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But it has the virtue of being true – and being much more troubling than mere ignorance.
