Some Republicans have stepped forward to defend Trump.
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Asked if the USA would improve its relationship with Russia by “bowing to the annexation of Crimea”, Trump reflected on the pro-Russian sentiment among some in the disputed area. “What he said – what I said – was, clearly if Russian Federation or any foreign country was interfering or intervening or engaging in illegal activity in the United states, in our elections or otherwise, that there be serious consequences”. It gives me no pause, if they have them, they have them.
Kurtz is dismayed by how the media isn’t being more fair to Trump for a statement that–even if it was a joke–still alarms people. He rejected USA criticism of Russian human rights record and Russian actions against media and intelligentsia, saying that the US doesn’t have the moral high ground to dictate anyone on internal governance.
“It was either an inviting of the breaking of law, inviting foreign countries to do espionage”, said Booker, who spoke at the convention Monday night. “You have 33,000 emails to lead it, and the real problem is what was said on the emails from the Democratic National Convention”.
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, which released more than 19,000 hacked e-mails from the DNC on July 22, refused repeatedlyon NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday to say whether the Russian government provided the documents, adding only that a foreign government theoretically acting as a source was an “interesting question”.
The DNC emails showed party leaders favouring Clinton over her rival in the campaign for the nomination, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Trump has funnily enough shown considerable consistency in his position towards Russian Federation. Such actions would take cyber espionage to a risky, new level – a direct effort by a hostile nation to interfere in the presidential race.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post pleaded with voters to “take note of one more reason Mr. Trump must not acquire the powers of the presidency”. There’s no proof of that, but it’s not a totally implausible theory.
In Moscow on Wednesday, Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russian Federation would never interfere in another countrys election. In Russia, the gesture is best remembered for the misspelling of the word in Russian, while the reset itself failed in the face of Putin’s return as Russian president in 2012 and Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine two years later.
The emails he referred to were on a personal server Clinton used while she was secretary of state.
Meanwhile Trump campaign alleged that Clinton wants a low audience for the three presidential debates, with Trump questioning the need to have the much-anticipated debates on a days of popular National Football League games.
But anyone interested in the country’s welfare should be focused on getting to the bottom of the DNC hack, figuring out how to sanction the culprits and preventing it from happening again. “He’s been actively attacking the US -backed rebels in Syria, buzzing ships and planes in the Black Sea and the Baltic, not to mention invading Ukraine and seizing Crimea”.
Responsible Republicans seem to understand the stakes.
Trump claimed in an interview Wednesday with CBS that, “I have nothing to do with Russian Federation”.
Trump’s comment about Crimea and Russian sanctions, says Kramer, sent “terrible signals and will be interpreted not only as a betrayal by the United States of our allies but as rewarding aggressive behavior by Russia”.
By Thursday, though, Pence had jumped on the sarcasm train, too.
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Umm… did he genuinely forget he’s running for president?
