Trump’s Foreign Policy Philosophy Hard to Pin Down
Masood Farivar, Voice of America
Is President-elect Donald Trump a foreign policy realist or idealist? Is he bringing Richard Nixon’s hard-edged realpolitik to his foreign policy or following in the footsteps of the more idealistic Ronald Reagan?
The question has become a parlor game among Washington's policy pundits.
Trump’s frequent invocation of Reagan’s “peace through strength” mantra and campaign pledge to rebuild America’s “depleted” military has invited comparisons to the Republican icon credited with winning the Cold War.
His advocacy of a foreign policy based on America’s national interests has led some to liken it to Nixonian realism, while his aversion to foreign interventions has won him the label of a non-interventionist and even isolationist.
Don’t Fence Trump In
Trump has professed no great power doctrine and his advisers discourage applying labels to his vision of the world.
“I’m not going to be put into the little academic, graduate school box because I think it doesn’t suit, and it doesn’t apply in a rapidly changing world,” said K.T. McFarland, Trump’s incoming deputy national security adviser, when asked to describe the Trump doctrine.
While Trump’s call for “peace through strength” reflects Reagan’s view of deterrence, “there are parts of Nixon and (Henry) Kissinger that Donald Trump has also advocated,” McFarland said at the U.S. Institute of Peace, alluding to Trump’s interest-based approach to world affairs.
Trump’s Speeches
A foreign policy neophyte, Trump has shied away from declaring any grand foreign strategy during the campaign, though he did give two major speeches devoted to foreign policy and national security.
In the first speech, delivered at the realist-leaning Center for the National Interest in Washington in April, Trump outlined what he called a “coherent foreign policy based on American interests” and called for “getting out of nation building,” creating stability and quashing “radical Islam.”
“Containing the spread of radical Islam must be a major foreign policy goal of the United States and indeed the world,” Trump said. “Events may require the use of military force, but it’s also a philosophical struggle, like our long struggle in the Cold War.”
In the second speech, at Youngstown University in Ohio in August, Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric about terror, warning countries around the world that they’d be judged based on their commitment to the U.S. goal of fighting terrorism.
“All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which shares this goal will be our ally,” Trump told a rally of supporters.
‘Strategic Surprise’
It was a theme that Trump would repeat, in one iteration or another, throughout the campaign, but his advisers say Trump’s pre- and post-election pronouncements on foreign policy, often delivered off the cuff, should not be read as policy prescriptions.
“Actually, he didn’t say a lot about foreign policy and national security on the campaign trail, and what he did say really doesn’t add up to a policy,” said James Carafano, director of foreign policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation who advises the Trump transition team on foreign affairs. “That’s very frustrating because the people want to know what’s this guy going to do.”
With the new administration yet to take office, McFarland, too, cautioned that Trump’s foreign policy is in an early stage of development.
“That’s what a new administration does: It takes time to rethink things and to come up with policies,” she said.
If history is any guide, Trump could quickly find himself facing a set of foreign policy crises different from the issues he campaigned on. Political scientists have a term for an unexpected world event that drives a new president into uncharted territory: “strategic surprise.”
For former President George W. Bush, who campaigned on pursuing a “humble foreign policy,” the strategic surprise came September 11, 2001.
For President Barack Obama, who vowed to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the “Arab Spring” protests in North Africa and the Middle East marked a strategic surprise, leaving his administration more deeply mired in the region than he’d hoped.
What international crisis might alter the trajectory of the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda has become a guessing game, with the number of scenarios exceeded only by the variety of foreign policy labels attributed to Trump.
A game-changing terrorist attack on American interests is one possible candidate. Another contender: an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch by North Korea.
“I think the world is not necessarily going to allow President Trump to do everything he’s planned on,” said Blaise Misztal, director of the national security program at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. “I think you’re going to see a triangulation between what he’s said, what he’s advised to do, and what is actually feasible on the world stage.”
Flip Flopping on Issues
While Trump has flip flopped on some issues, NATO and torturing terrorists, for example, he’s held steady on others. Among them: terrorism, trade, China and Russia.
In the weeks since his election, he’s reiterated his pledge to make terrorism a focus of his foreign policy, talked tough on trade, challenged the “One China” policy, and iterated again a desire to reset relations with Russia even as he embraced intelligence findings that Moscow interfered in last year’s presidential election.
Brian Katulis of Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank, said the “most radical shift” Trump will likely undertake will be “engagement and involvement” with Russia, something Obama unsuccessfully attempted during his first term in office.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden said Trump is likely to reconsider his approach to Russia once he learns from intelligence agencies and allies that Russia and Syria are not committed to fighting IS.
“I’m personally very, very skeptical of any convergence between American and Russian interests in this part of the world,” Hayden said. “In fact, I’d offer the view that American and Russian interests are actually heading in different directions.”
Another major change: downplaying a postwar American foreign policy tradition of promoting democracy and freedom around the world.
“Trump has signaled as a candidate and in the transition a proclivity to appreciate authoritarian and repressive leaders around the world,” Katulis said. “And this may be the biggest departure that is historic, that there really won’t be as much of a values-based approach that focuses on human rights democracy and freedom in other countries. And that I think puts the United States itself on shaky territory.”
But McFarland played down those concerns, saying “the three bedrocks of (postwar) American foreign policy” — American leadership, American values and international alliances — will remain under the Trump administration.
Unpredictability
There is usually some continuity between administrations on foreign policy, but “that rule actually may not apply under Trump,” Katulis said.
“We’re dealing with something here that is just fundamentally different and off the charts,” Katulis explained.
That 'something' is Trump’s well-known unpredictability. Trump has criticized President Obama for telegraphing his policy moves and has vowed to remain unpredictable. But experts say unpredictability can be dangerous in the international arena where both allies and adversaries expect a certain degree of predictability from the United States.
"Predictability is the cornerstone of deterrence," said Clarke. "You need to be predictable if you’re the United states, both in what your allies know you’ll do and in what your adversaries know you’ll do and how you’ll respond."
Comments
Mattis to #NATO: "No longer can the American taxpayer carry a disproportionate share of defense of western values”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/02/15/mattis-tru…
Interesting for a number of reasons....actually NATO members have never calculated their own individual defense spending in sending their troops and civilian personnel to Iraq....AFG...and now Syria and does not calculate their individuals costs for flying NATO missions over Iraq...Syria and AFG....AS part of their NATO 2% requirements...will they start????
Also the US does not have to due to their basing agreements..pay for full rates for utilities...infrastructure maintenance/repairs and property taxes...... a major reduction of their various NATO agreements that NATO countries pick up the tab on.....
Lastly say in Germany...US troops do not pay German VAT charges do not have to meet vehicle pollution standards and do not pay German road taxes...AND for their commissaries and PXs they do not pay importation taxes.....
WHAT if not NATO flips the Mattis demands on the US??????
APPEARS Trump forgot to ask the permission of Russian to basically fire Flynn....
"An unambiguous signal to US officials: fixing relations with Russia is fatal for your career."
Russian papers on Mike Flynn's resignation.
NOTICE Russian government is still saying...no contacts took place and what are the facts...
Russian fishing to find out what US IC holds as evidence...
BUT WAIT...this says it all...Trump urgently needs to pretend Flynn and the Russian connections also applied to Page...Stone...and Manafort who are still under FBI FISA investigations....
"Russian officials defending an American national security adviser as if he were one of their own"
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/02/mike-flynn-ru…
EU Mythbusters
✔
@EUvsDisinfo
Widely used disinformation practice: 1) Take a grain of truth, 2) inflate & distort it, 3) spread the message:
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/empty-europea...n-russian-tv/#
NOW go back and take a long serious look on exactly how Trump uses his tweets......1) takes a perceived grain of truth.....2) inflates and distorts then that very small grain of truth.....AND THEN 3) spreads his message that he wants his voters to "hear" and "read".....
Trump is actually extremely good in the use of disinformation and pure propaganda to distort and deflect.....
Trump tweets his dislike of the US IC and the same FBI he praised once for bashing Clinton right before the election.....
BUT WHAT is interesting is that he is not bashing the actual information which is largely true...he just bashes the leaking.....is that not strange?????
BY THE WAY....watch exactly how he employs Russian propaganda tactics....in this set of tweets....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h
5 hours ago
The fake news media is going crazy with their conspiracy theories and blind hatred. @MSNBC & @CNN are unwatchable. @foxandfriends is great!
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h
5 hours ago
This Russian connection non-sense is merely an attempt to cover-up the many mistakes made in Hillary Clinton's losing campaign.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 4h
4 hours ago
Information is being illegally given to the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost by the intelligence community (NSA and FBI?).Just like Russia
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 4h
4 hours ago
Thank you to Eli Lake of The Bloomberg View - "The NSA & FBI...should not interfere in our politics...and is" Very serious situation for USA
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 4h
4 hours ago
Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration. Was Obama too soft on Russia?
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 3h
3 hours ago
The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by "intelligence" like candy. Very un-American!
NOTICE Trump never seems to challenge the validity of the leaked information ONLY that it was leaked.....
EU Mythbusters
✔
@EUvsDisinfo
Widely used disinformation practice: 1) Take a grain of truth, 2) inflate & distort it, 3) spread the message:
https://euvsdisinfo.eu/empty-europea...n-russian-tv/#
NOW go back and take a long serious look on exactly how Trump uses his tweets......1) takes a perceived grain of truth.....2) inflates and distorts then that very small grain of truth.....AND THEN 3) spreads his message that he wants his voters to "hear" and "read".....
Trump is actually extremely good in the use of disinformation and pure propaganda to distort and deflect.....
JUST how can the Russians be so certain that the words spoken yesterday by Trump's own spokesperson are not in fact "true"????
Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin refuses to consider the demand to return Crimea to Ukraine by Sean Spicer as Trump's position.
SO what does the Russian Duma Speaker "know" that Spicer does not apparently know???? Apparently alot more than Spicer knows...question is HOW does he know it????
FROM THE MOSCOW TIMES
Anyone else smell a rat here? El Pres. knows he's about to get screwed by Russia links.. hey presto "tough Trump"
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/trump-expects-crimea-to-be-returned-to-…
BUT WAIT..then he seems to get really angry....in Russian for the home crowd.....
Duma speaker Volodin blasts Spicer's comments on Crimea: "This is an infringement on our territorial integrity."
https://meduza.io/news/2017/02/15/volodin-zayavlenie-o-kryme-narushaet-…
It only took Trump and his merry band to accept with a big MAYBE in JAN 2017 that Russia was MAYBE indeed behind election hacking and influence operations during the US election....BUT again with a really big MAYBE......
MAYBE he should pay more attention to say Russian activities now in Europe....
As US copes w/ aftermath of Putin's attack, Russia's hacks & fake news are trying to rig 3 major elections in Europe
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/13/vladimir-putin-russia-using-…
Today is going down inflames as the Trump WH seems to not be concerned that everything is going to heck in a handbag....
“I was hoping you could tell me what the f@ck is going on over there”
European intelligence official on US now
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mitchprothero/us-allies-in-europe-have-no-idea…
Trump said he "loves" WikiLeaks. Now he's condemning "illegal leaks coming out of Washington."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/02/14/trump-real-story-is-medi…
BREAKING: GOP senators call for investigation into connections between Trump and Russia, want Flynn to testify
http://cnn.it/2lGWYnO
Polish comments reference the Russian INF direct violation in their stationing of land based cruise missiles....
So, INF missile treaty out the door, Berlin within range.
Will you, or not, pass the test of leadership Russians have set you,
Russian spy ship spotted near US on same day the Kremlin secretly deploys cruise missiles:
http://fxn.ws/2kGXYEj
Is the Trump WH now a "Ship of Fools"....
The White House has posted inaccurate copies of President Trump's executive orders on its website five times.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/02/14/white-house-post…
Russians are on a roll today it appears.....
BREAKING: Russian Jets Buzzed U.S. Destroyer
https://goo.gl/sSd3hP
Obama shut down the Russian GRU SIGINT mansion in DC area and now this....
QUOTE
PENTAGON: Russian spy ship patrolling 70 miles off the US coast #Delaware
REMEMBER this was the conversation that Flynn had with the Russian Ambassador....a quid pro quo deal...you remain quiet on the expulsion of 35 GRU spies and we will lift your sanctions.....
Trump's next serious Russian FP problem.....
Russian Cruise Missile, Deployed Secretly, Violates Treaty
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russian-cruise-missile-deployed-sec…
DO WHAT.......?????
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 4m
4 minutes ago
The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?
The leaking is coming from his own team and close associates.....AND the official leaking of the IC is a not so subtle wake up call directed at Trump that in fact he is under investigation for treason......
Simple call up the definition of treason....
AND he violated countless federal security regulations in having TS/SCI materials read and talked about in the middle of a Trump owned restaurant...AND he was "dealing on N Korea" in the front of tens of uncleared civilians again another security violation....
THEN he adlibbed the NK press conference and did not read the agreed to Japan/US joint common statement.....????
Trump needs to come back to reality ...get real....stop lying and stop tweeting.....
Blast from the past that is coming back to haunt Flynn.....
"If I did a tenth of what she did, i'd be in jail today"— Mike Flynn
Last July it was obvious that Trump & Flynn in particular needed intense scrutiny. The press gave it, did the FBI?
http://www.interpretermag.com/the-kremlin-is-working-hard-to-make-donal…
Ben Rhodes
Verified account
@brhodes
When campaign chairman and NSA both resign over Russia ties there is more.
Manafort and Flynn had nothing in common except Russia and Trump
BUT WAIT....Carter Page also was forced to resign when he came under fire for his Russian connections during the campaign as well...BUT THEN showed up in Moscow after the election and was advertised by the Russians as an advisor to Trump who then gave a speech indicating that the sanctions might in fact be lifted shortly...
Trump Fri nite claimed he hadn't heard about WP story that Flynn talked sanctions.
Story was out for a day
BUT THEN.....WAIT......DOJ had told Trump WH last month.
So why the major difference in Trump's stories??????
Donald J. Trump
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!
This tweet does kind of make one wonder if the President-elect knew about the contents of Flynn conversation on sanctions with Kislyak.
BLUF........
Interesting to note Trump refer to "V. Putin". Unusual form for US citizen to use.....but not for Russians
You have got to be kidding me...and the GOP has never heard of NSA monitoring of Embassies considered to be hostile to US interests?????
FBI needs to explain why Michael Flynn was recorded, GOP Intelligence chairman says.
BTW....Flynn being a former DIA director should have known about this monitoring????
So, who is going to review all the intelligence & operational information Flynn had access to in the last three weeks, and where it went?
Flynn handpicked his NSC Russia team. Now they've got to figure out what to do without him.
This is a disturbing reminder that getting rid of Flynn hardly gets rid of the threat of Russian influence in the White House
So was the DoJ and the WH totally wrong????
Russia in USA
Verified account
@RusEmbUSA
#Peskov: There have been no talks between #Russia and the #UnitedStates about the lifting of sanctions
BUT EVEN Russia hedged....there have been no "official talks" between US and Russia..
Did not say just between two private citizens of two different countries did they????
Even Russian propaganda media outlets got caught flatfooted.....as they had believed the Putin spokesperson that there was not contact on sanctions with the Russian Ambassador......
QUOTE
They’ve changed it from “retires” to “resigns”
BUT REMEMBER this exact tweet from Trump AFTER the Russians did not respond to the US tossing out 35 of their spies......
Donald J. Trump
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!
BUT EQUALLY REMEMBER that Flynn talked with the US Russian ambassador and in a quid pro quo offer...stated it would be wise if Russia showed restrain and we will be then in position to revisit the sanctions together...
AND Trump claims to have not known about the Flynn Russian talks and their contents......
One has to really read the DoJ warning which indicated a quid pro quo was talked about....
SO no wonder the Russian propaganda media were caught flatfooted....
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Feb 12
I know Mark Cuban well. He backed me big-time but I wasn't interested in taking all of his calls.He's not smart enough to run for president!
Sometimes one's own tweets come back to haunt you......
So Trump feels he is super smart as a President.....?????
Mark Urban
✔
@MarkUrban01
The workings of America's 'deep state'. If you come to Washington threatening the status quo, it will fight back..
And it did and will continue to fight back as it realizes that Trump and his merry band are in fact tied closely too closely to Putin and black money...
BLUF....Trump and his merry band are not the only ones extremely close to Russian money.....
Interesting visit for two self proclaimed proRussian US Congressional supporters.....
QUOTE
US Congressmen King & Rohrabacher pay a visit to discuss Liberty & shared values w/(next president of France?) Marine Le Pen @MLP_officiel
BOTH also anti Ukraine in their statements concerning both Crimea and the Russian invasion into eastern Ukraine...........
AND both have received campaign donations from K Street lobbying firms who have Russian lobbying contracts....
So Trump calls NATO obsolete and bashes the EU and wants to appoint a friend of his to the US EU Ambassador position is heavily anti EU and who has major lies on his CV....
AND then Bannon creates new Bannon consulting companies in France..Germany...UK to support the development of "white political parties"....ANd who offered to assist LePen win her French populist campaign to take France out of the EU/NATO and Euro......
SO tell me we do not have a serious problem with proRussian US politicians.....AND the US far right.....
BLUF......
I am not the only one seeing a Trump/Bannon cover up of the Russian connections......
The Independent
✔
@Independent
Trump was warned by Sally Yates that Flynn was compromised. He did nothing, but fired her
http://ind.pn/2kF1leM
But the mystery remains unanswered by Trump and his merry band:
Why was White House so eager to lift sanctions?
And why did Flynn feel he had to lie about it?
WHAT is interesting is that a number of former Obama and Bush WH personnel have stated it would be nearly impossible that Trump did not know exactly what his natsec advisor was saying and doing........
NSAs are not some kind of rouge elephants in a china shop.....
AND if one really looks hard at the Trump statements on lifting of Russian sanctions and then know that Flynn had talked about a quid pro quo....
How could Trump have not known?????
He was the one making Russia the center piece of his new "grand bargain"....
what is actually amazing about this Flynn/Trump/Bannon Russian problem....
IF we take the DoJ statements to heart.....
Flynn was not fired for lying to Trump and Pence...BUT fired because it was leaked to the press that he was lying...
A very big difference...remember Trump and his merry band was warned over a FULL MONTH ago by DoJ of Flynn's potential problems and Trump and company did absolutely nothing..WHY is that????
Trump was warned BY THE WAY from the very same Acting AG that Trump fired for her refusal to go along with the Trump Muslim Ban which was eventually proven to be badly written...as she felt it was legally wrong...
OR was she fired because she "knew" about the Flynn lies...and the Trump WH was attempting to cover their Russian tracks??
IF one looks at the Trump twitter barrages..he effectively kept the narrative on everything other than the Russian connections and the DoJ warning...????????
THE following is exactly what Russia/Putin wants...a NEW Yalta 2.0 which if one really looks at the entire set of Trump comments on Russia and Putin actually support what Trump/Flynn/Bannon were pushing as a "grand bargain" with Russia....
Actually Trump's FP in this direction..."a grand bargain" was just a US slogan pasted over the Putin New Yalta 2.0.......
QUOTE
One Russian paper today calls for a "new world order" with "buffer zones" around Russia & China. Today's video review.
REMEMBER for those not of the Cold War..."buffer zones=sphere's of influence".
What Putin and his FM have stated since 2006...."we envision an economic and political zone from Portugal to the Russian Far East"...
REMEMBER: and really think this through when analyzing Trump/Flynn/Bannon moves over the last months......
Russian non linear warfare actually supports their current very active political war with the US that they see as the world's leader of "neo-liberalism"..it has THREE critical geopolitical goals....
1. discredit and damage NATO
2. discredit and damage EU
3. totally disconnect the US from Europe/NATO and ME...for good.....
NOW tell me just how far down the road Trump has already started taking the US in order to fulfill these three Russian geopolitical goals???
Every single rally statement...every single interview...every single speech and tweet supports the three Russian geopolitical goals....
So Trump is not "connected" to Russian goals....at least verbally????
The Trump bromance is tied to the Trump need for capital to keep his Ponzi scheme moving forward...
AND this bromance has been going on since 1986.....
Donald J. Trump
Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
I just got back from Russia-learned lots & lots. Moscow is a very interesting and amazing place! U.S. MUST BE VERY SMART AND VERY STRATEGIC.
SO after being bashed by several commenters here about supporting Clinton or being anti Trump AND for accepting that the leaked Steele report was in fact a solid piece of HUMINT raw intelligence that is used by the other INT's to either confirm or deny...
WHAT did we get late last night...."the resigning of NSA Flynn for lying and his contacts to the US Russian Ambassador"
AND being bashed for pointing out the constant closeness of Page....Stone..Manafort and Flynn to the Russian Intelligence Services AND that we now have a President who must be also truly questioned about his business connections and there are many to Russian oligarchs and their black money ESPECIALLY since Trump's own casino's were heavily fined for money laundering...
WE must now ask the serious question "just how compromised" is this President who even has massive Chinese bankers supporting his so called business empire to the tune of 350M USD since he cannot get any US bank loans....due to his SEVEN bankruptcies....
WHAT DO WE NOW KNOW:
1. USG IC sources indicate that a number of the Steele reports can in fact be verified with evidence proving at least the Steele report is valid....
NOTE: Many will say there are no sex tapes....reference those so called sex tapes on Trump...deliberate RIS misinformation to divert attention and point out since the tapes did not exist the report is "fake news".
2. DoJ informed the Trump WH ONE FULL MONTH AGO of Flynn's potential lying about his Russian contacts and that he was potentially open to "blackmail".
NOTE: Trump WH did not even state that they had been in fact contacted....
3. THERE is still an ongoing FBI CI investigation into Page...Manafort...Stone.....and eventually Trump himself using FISA warrants to gather evidence....
4. THIS is critical...just how did the Russian government respond in their last attempt to "protect Flynn"?????
NOTE: Putin's very own spokesperson publicly stated that there had been no conversations between the US Russian Ambassador and Flynn over a "quid pro quo" sanctions lifting in exchange for Russian remaining quiet in the face of 35 of their spies being tossed out....
NOW we also see that Putin and his spokesperson "spoke a tad to soon"....
AGAIN if it was you and or me...and we had the very poor financial background of the so called business expert Trump..SEVEN bankruptcies...4000 court cases over his businesses and construction debts...IF we had a debt load of 650M USDs which Chinese banks are covering 350M.....AND IF you and me had not wanted to reveal out tax records to the Security Clearance Adjudicator THEN you and or me would have never received a TS/SCI clearance....
It is that simple....
NOW comes the MSM that Trump has bashed constantly as being dishonest..lying and providing fake news...with the following questions.
1. WHY if Trump knew that DoJ had warned him DID he not act?
2. WHY does the Trump WH want us to believe that Flynn was a loose cannon in his conversations with the Russians WHEN we see his very own bromance proPutin statements during the same DoJ timeframe..
3. Serious question....while Flynn maybe be flakey in his thoughts and statements "he did not go rouge and talk on his own to the Russians"...
WHAT did Trump know about these conversations and WHEN did he know AND who else in the Trump inner circle especially Bannon.
Notice it has been exceptionally quiet around Bannon a know white nationalist from Brietbart.com WHICH many of his statements and comments about destroying the "establishment" WOULD cause many Americans to lose their security clearances....
Video of Trump speaking @ wedding at Mar-a-Lago after NOKO presser. Groom's dad gave $100k to Trump SuperPacs
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/watch-trump-crash-wedding-… …
APPEARS mixing WH business and making money for the Trump family business does not present the Trump family any Moral conflicts YET they bashed Clinton for months on this subject....
"If he [Trump] could do that with Putin...and they can have trust in one another..."
https://nytimes.com/2017/02/12/us/politics/eric-trump-donald-trump-jr.h… …
YET he was elected to increase the earnings of the common man in the Rust Belt not make Trump richer while in the WH..........
Mar-a-Lago member who pays Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars posts pics of - and identifies - US official carrying nuclear football.
AN`D the mixing of Trump business profits and the WH is not what...conflict of interests the very same "drain the swamp" accussations he threw at Clinton....
NOW in the WH and he is now different it seems...actaully even worse when it comes to pay and play deals.....
THOSE watching Trump in action in a very illegal use of classified materials "paid" for the dinner at his own resort to see him in action...AND that is no pay for play....??????
"Trump ran a campaign based on intelligence security" is a bad premise but holy cow this post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/13/trump-ran-a-… …
“Phones — especially phones with their flashes turned on for improved visibility — are portable television satellite trucks"
Wonder if the waiters at Mar-a-Lago have all passed security clearances. Or are even all US citizens. Or even legal workers.
BLUF.......
The guy who ran an ad saying Clinton was "careless" on nat'l security got briefed on a missile launch in public while diners snapped photos.
BUT WAIT....just how did he get also a TS\SCI in order to work in the WH?????
Russian born Trump White House Adviser Boris Epshteyn moderated panel in Russia w/Moscow city gov officials
"Trump ran a campaign based on intelligence security" is a bad premise but holy cow this post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/02/13/trump-ran-a-… …
“Phones — especially phones with their flashes turned on for improved visibility — are portable television satellite trucks"
Wonder if the waiters at Mar-a-Lago have all passed security clearances. Or are even all US citizens. Or even legal workers.
IF any normal human being holding a TS\SCI had done this outside of a SCIF...he or she would have that their clearance stripped immediately, fired and charged with security violations.....AND jailed for a minimum of FIVE years......
WHY is not the President...Flynn and Bannon...Miller NOT held to the same standards????????
NO wonder the USG IC does not trust this WH.....
Viewing TS\SCI materials in the middle of a restraurant in full public view and in listening range is far more danagerous than say a Snowdon.....
Anyone who has held a TS\SCI clearance fully understands exactly what the term SCIF means in order to protect highly classified materails especailly SIGINT.....ELINT and HUMINT.....
BUT WAIT.....FOUR waiters forming a square around the US President and the Japanese PM serving salads...is now the new Trump defintion of a SCIF.....
Bannon & Flynn used phone flashlights for Trump read most secure N Korea docs w/waiters serving.
Maybe Rs can scream more about HRC emails
Trump reportedly got call about N. Korea during dinner at Mar-a-Lago and discussed it there in a public dining room.
NOTE.....NEW USG security standards for the Trump WH......
The obscure WH 4-waiters-standing-in-square-make-a-SCIF rule (valid only in FLORIDA), unknown before last weekend.
OH and that smart phone that Trump tweets and calls on is in fact not a secure smart phone.....
Ever notice Trump loves to tweet negative comments about fake news and dishonest media when it concerns CNN.....
BUT WAIT.......
Jake Tapper
Verified account
@jaketapper
We invited the WH to offer a guest for @CNNSotu to discuss President Trump's agenda and plans; they did not respond to our request.
BUT WAIT...then the Trump WH ran from any interviews about the Trump agenda....mainly out of fear of being asked about the Flynn Russian connections....
NOTE:
Following @CNN request, Trump literally spent all day avoiding the press.
Wow....now we have the leader of Hezbollah a terror organization supporting verbally Trump....
Hezbollah's Nasrallah: Trump is right that Obama & Clinton created ISIS.
He seems to be honest re the past.
Will he be honest re the future?
BUT WAIT...the Russians also claim Obama started IS......
Just in @reuters: Kremlin says there is talk of possible Putin-Trump meeting before July.
http://reut.rs/2l6xdfN
This is exactly how the Russian reverse mirror propaganda/misinformation concept works.....
Russia uses SS-21 Scarab (Tochka-U) against Syrians. So in Kremlin's mirror world they lie that Ukraine uses them!
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201702131050611355-ukraine-tactical-miss…
A deep lessons learned with Russian statements on and or about the Ukraine and Syria...
IF Russia publicly states that they did not do something...THEN they in fact did it.....
This has been proven over and over and over since 2014.....
BREAKING: Russia says Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did not discuss lifting sanctions in call with Russian ambassador
BUT WAIT....they did not hack nor get involved in the US elections...BUT the entire US IC says they did and they have evidence to back it up....