Free Republic

At the close of the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, Hodges told DW that Trump’s attitude toward NATO is worrying, his attack on Angela Merkel was “a terrible mistake” and his friendship with Putin is “inexplicable.” DW: What did you make of President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki? Do you share what seems to be the common view: that it was a diplomatic disaster that undermines multilateral alliances like NATO?Hodges: I’m reluctant to say anything is a disaster so immediately after it happened. It’s just going to take a little bit of time for things...

Former CIA Director John Brennan reacted to President Donald Trump’s performance at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin with outrage on Monday, calling on Trump’s secretary of state, national security adviser and chief of staff to resign over the President’s behavior. “I cannot understand how the national security team can continue to abide by this and how Pompeo and Bolton and Kelly can continue in their jobs,” he told MSNBC after the press conference on Monday. “This, I think, rises to the point of good American patriots resigning..."

Oh, really? Although Russia -- the largest nation on the planet -- is in many ways a failing state with an economy barely the size of Texas, it still has a huge percentage of the world's nuclear weapons, about equal with ours, and the capacity to deliver them (and to pass them along to unreliable non-state actors). It behooves us to have a relationship with them for our survival and everybody else's, to keep our friends close and our enemies closer, as the Godfather would put it. The obvious goal in this is to limit nuclear proliferation and even to...

We reported over the weekend that –> The Democrats, Deep State Mueller and Rosenstein and their MSM are doing all they can to prevent President Donald Trump from meeting with Russian President Putin. Why are they so persistent in stopping the President of the US from meeting with Putin? You would think this was a good thing, right? President Trump is planning on meeting with Russian President Putin over the next few days in Finland. These will be the first scheduled meetings between the US President, accused by the Democrats and the Deep State and their MSM of the fake...

Disgraceful. Embarrassing. A complete lack of grasp of the situation. Such were the observations about President Trump’s performance at the joint press conference with Vladimir Putin. Everyone is free to like or dislike the way Trump navigates the world, but I would suggest those descriptions are more suited to the swarm of wild overreaction. It has become a familiar rhythm for the President to do or say something, only to be attacked reflexively by his harshest opponents. But the Monday festival of totally wrongheaded analysis ensnared even the occasionally sympathetic. One could expect the bug-eyed calls for impeachment, and the...

There are many things you can accuse President Donald Trump of. And treason is now apparently one of those after his controversial press conference with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at their summit in Helsinki, Finland. But do lawyers agree? “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors,’” tweeted John Brennan, the former CIA director. “It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???” Brennan’s premise is that at the press conference, Trump appeared to...

Awake early in the morning as I am (happening to me as time passes), thought it would be interesting to check how the LOCAL TV stations are covering the hand wringing over the Trump news conference yesterday. Doesn't seem like there is an independent voice among the bunch. But we'll see.

You can’t help but be somewhat amused by the unhinged media’s reaction to the Trump-Putin press conference. The cohort that idolized Russia Russia Russia during its heyday suddenly finds itself in full agreement with Ronald Reagan - it is indeed the Evil Empire (having colluded with Trump to steal the election from the smartest woman in the world). They’re only 27 years late, and now it’s all Trump’s fault, because, ya know, their guy told Putin to Cut. It. Out! So there you have it: all President Trump would have had to do to placate the media yesterday was drop...

Video at link... Within mere hours of President Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin concluding, cable news had worked themselves into a frenzy that suggested the sky itself must be falling.

WHO IS BILL BROWDER? PUTIN ASKS FOR TRUMP'S HELP IN QUESTIONING BILLIONAIRE FOR 'ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES' IN RUSSIA During a press conference with President Donald Trump in Finland on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would allow special counsel Robert Mueller to interview Russians indicted for interfering in the 2016 presidential election if Russian law enforcement can access people connected to one man in particular: the London-based financier Bill Browder. “Business associates of Mr. Browder have earned over 1.5 million dollars in Russia. They never paid any taxes, neither in Russia nor in the United States, and yet the money...

President Donald Trump defended his comments referring to the American Russian investigation after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. The president defied media and establishment political critics accusing him of allowing Putin to lie about his attempts to influence the 2016 American presidential election. “As I said today and many times before, ‘I have GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people,’” Trump said on Twitter on Monday. Putin said during the press conference that he did not try to influence the 2016 election, a statement that Trump called “extremely strong and powerful.” Trump weighed in on the...

NYU Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen and FNC's Tucker Carlson discuss the president's meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and calls of "treason" from Democrats and Intel officials. TUCKER CARLSON, FNC: Assess, if you would, the reaction today to this press conference and to the summit between Putin and Trump/ STEPHEN F. COHEN: The reaction by most of the media, by the Democrats, by the anti-Trump people is like mob violence. I've never seen anything like it in my life. This is the president of the United States, doing what every other president before him, since FDR in 1943...

RUSH: Hey, folks, parts of this joint press conference here between Trump and Putin were comedy gold. Parts of this press conference were some of the funniest stuff that’s been on American television since Trump was elected. I mean, I have been laughing myself silly. I don’t laugh out loud much watching television anymore. It’s a sad reality, but watching TV does not make me laugh anymore. But I have been laughing out loud — uncontrollably at times — watching this joint presser. What makes it is that the United States media regularly beclowns itself, makes fools of themselves because...

Republican lawmakers were left shaking their heads after President Trump’s Monday’s press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin, in which Trump declined to endorse the American intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) called it “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory” and a “tragic mistake” in a statement. “No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” McCain said. “The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.” House speaker Paul Ryan also...

In the simplest and potentially most effective clapback tweet of all time, Hillary Clinton blasted Trump for his Putin presser in Helsinki with four simple words: "well, now we know." The tweet was a followup to one she had posted about Trump the day before his trip to the summit, saying, "Great World Cup. Question for President Trump as he meets Putin: Do you know which team you play for?" Clinton's response to her own tweet (that we all now "know" which team Trump plays for) was a clearly barbed acknowledgement of Trump's now infamous behavior at the summit, in...

Hannity

Trump faces political and legal jeopardy from the Justice Department investigation of his 2016 campaign and Russia. Against that backdrop, comments that Republican Sen. Ben Sasse called “bizarre” make sense: Trump spoke most emphatically in discrediting the Mueller investigation. Former CIA Director John Brennan condemned Trump’s words as “nothing short of treasonous.” Others, in less provocative terms, joined in harsh denunciations. President Trump’s stunning news conference with Vladimir Putin becomes understandable once you recognize that he was advancing his personal interests, not those of the United States. Trump faces political and legal jeopardy from the Justice Department investigation of his...

During the July 2018 NATO summit, elements of the USA newsmedia focused on President Trump’s accurate attacks on Western Europe’s contradictory actions and positions in the arenas of defense and commerce. What the USA newsmedia covered much less was how welcome those points were to NATO members from Eastern Europe, whose memories of Russian aggression are much more recent, perhaps, than those of Western Europe, making them as wary of these issues as Mr. Trump is. Delegates from Poland, Lithuania, and Romania, for example, appeared just as happy about Mr. Trump’s comments as delegates from England, France and especially Germany...

1. Obama Replays Sick Middle School Burn In response, Obama mocked Romney’s statement: “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because…the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” 2. Clinton: It’s So Last Season To Be Concerned About Russia Hillary Clinton got in on the action, saying it was “somewhat dated” to be worried about Russia. The self-titled “pantsuit aficionado” should probably stop judging other people for doing things that are “dated,” am I right? 3.Joe Biden: It May Be A Gaffe; I Would Know Vice President Joe Biden suggested Romney’s assertion might’ve been either...

"President Trump's decision to side with Putin over American intelligence is disgraceful and detrimental to our democratic principles. Russia remains our number one geopolitical adversary; claiming a moral equivalence between the United States and Russia not only defies reason and history, it undermines our national integrity and impairs our global credibility."