“I think it’s inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country”, said Gov. Mike Pence of in on CNN, defending Trump by echoing his latest praise for the Russian leader, offered Wednesday night in a televised candidate forum.
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“Matt was constrained by time and was overwhelmed by Trump”, said David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former chief strategist.
“Trump is more popular than Clinton in Russia, because his political style is what Russians like: he is blunt, sometimes amusing and feeds the “anti-establishment” sentiment”, said political analyst Konstanin Kalachev.
Clinton and her top aides have sought to disqualify Trump’s ability to handle national security and military issues, questioning his temperament and qualifications. Her campaign could barely contain its wonder that her opponents were now allowing her to chain Trump to a Russian leader widely seen as hostile to the United States.
The Republican candidate argued in a televised debate in front of U.S. army veterans that Russian president Vladimir Putin was more of a leader than current USA president Barack Obama, after Putin had previously praised the NY tycoon.
We’ve covered Putin. (The essential Trump quote: “If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him.”) But there’s so much more.
“Vladimir Putin is an aggressor who does not share our interests”, Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters Thursday in Washington, accusing the Russian leader of “conducting state-sponsored cyberattacks” on “our political system”.
After presenting meek optimism upon their return from the summer recess, GOP lawmakers this week are again voicing their frustration with their nominee, especially because Russian hacks of US databases have alarmed politicians.
Still, he slipped several interesting “tells” of his liberal bias, such as referring to Romney’s economic plans as “trickle-down” and breaking up Romney’s train of thought by calling time when he was prosecuting especially effective attacks on Obama, while letting Obama go well past his deadline to finish his thoughts.
Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump praised Vladimir Putin during NBC News’ “Commander-In-Chief Forum” – he said the Russian president is “stronger” than President Obama – the Republican presidential nominee was interviewed over the phone by the Kremlin-backed TV network RT.
Over the course of 13 minutes of a Thursday speech at a Cleveland school, Trump offered nine explanations and justifications for his position on the war in 2002 and 2003.
“He’s a thug”, said Sen. Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, tells people asking about fraud that they should work at local polls.
Even Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., perhaps Trump’s closest ally on Capitol Hill, appeared ill at ease when pressed about Trump’s statements. Ironically, conservative media sites, when the program was announced, said oh, he’s going to go easy on Hillary Clinton because he once went to a Clinton Foundation event. My personal favorite moment – other than reliving Trump’s assertion that we should have taken Iraq’s oil without him ever having to explain how you’d get the oil out of Iraq without keeping troops there – came when Lauer asked Trump about the security briefings he now receives.
Mingling outside the Capitol, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Rep. Charles B. Rangel of NY, two of the longest-serving and bluntest-speaking members of Congress, found themselves uncharacteristically at a loss for words. They were hoping Trump would say something so dumb, or so outrageous that it would be the big takeaway from the evening.
For example, this year two Far Left media figures (we won’t call them journalists) are set to moderate two of the presidential debates.
Rangel interjected: “A communist leader that’s a potential enemy!” Polls tend to narrow as Election Day nears, and the Clinton campaign has struggled to overcome controversy about how she handled classified information while serving as secretary of state.
But the problem isn’t so much the Republican presidential candidates as it is the establishment Republicans on the Commission on Presidential Debates and the leadership of the Republican National Committee who are not innocent bystanders.
“We’ve become to some degree numbed to this, saying, ‘That’s just Trump, ‘” he observed. A fundraising email sent out by the Clinton campaign on Thursday used Lauer’s failure to “fact-check Trump” to rally supporters.
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After the news conference, Clinton flew to North Carolina to rally African-American voters – and seized the chance to again assail Trump’s comments.
