Just look at the return Vladimir Putin has gotten on his investment, which has cost him less than one nuclear missile to buy a U.S. president and a senate majority:
• The government of the United States — Putin’s greatest adversary — SHUT DOWN three times in one year, each time longer than the one before and all of them started while Republicans controlled the House, Senate and presidency.
• Western alliances in disarray — including a puppet president who is trying to get the U.S. to withdraw from NATO.
• Trump literally spouting Soviet and Russian talking points regarding Syria and the justifications for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
• Trump repeatedly claims to trust Putin more than the heads of his own intelligence agencies, all of who HE appointed.
• Trump GAVE TOP SECRET CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to top Russian diplomats IN THE OVAL OFFICE, which was covered by Russian media and photographers since U.S. media was shut out — and subsequently a high-valued, highly-placed asset had to be evacuated, while (as the ’toon notes) Putin’s high-value, highly-placed asset still sits securely behind the Resolute Desk.
• Trump — with no prior diplomatic experience or expertise — holds multiple secret ONE-ON-ONE meetings with Putin that he conceals from even his own staff, with no official notes or memoranda, even confiscating and destroying interpreter notes, while Putin is free to preserve HIS interpreters’ notes and possibly even makes recordings good for future kompromat.
• Total chaos in the White House.
• Financial markets in turmoil.
• Tariffs that make U.S. exports less desirable and Russian exports more desirable (China no longer importing U.S. soybeans and Putin rushing to fill the Chinese demand for soybeans that used to be met by American farmers so that U.S. soybean sales to China will never come back.)
Shutdown? Trump doesn’t care about shutting down the government, because it is not the one he works for.
Just look at the return Vladimir Putin has gotten on his investment, which has cost him less than one nuclear missile to buy a U.S. president and a senate majority:
• The government of the United States — Putin’s greatest adversary — SHUT DOWN three times in one year, each time longer than the one before and all of them started while Republicans controlled the House, Senate and presidency.
• Western alliances in disarray — including a puppet president who is trying to get the U.S. to withdraw from NATO.
• Trump literally spouting Soviet and Russian talking points regarding Syria and the justifications for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
• Trump repeatedly claims to trust Putin more than the heads of his own intelligence agencies, all of who HE appointed.
• Trump GAVE TOP SECRET CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to top Russian diplomats IN THE OVAL OFFICE, which was covered by Russian media and photographers since U.S. media was shut out — and subsequently a high-valued, highly-placed asset had to be evacuated, while (as the ’toon notes) Putin’s high-value, highly-placed asset still sits securely behind the Resolute Desk.
• Trump — with no prior diplomatic experience or expertise — holds multiple secret ONE-ON-ONE meetings with Putin that he conceals from even his own staff, with no official notes or memoranda, even confiscating and destroying interpreter notes, while Putin is free to preserve HIS interpreters’ notes and possibly even makes recordings good for future kompromat.
• Total chaos in the White House.
• Financial markets in turmoil.
• Tariffs that make U.S. exports less desirable and Russian exports more desirable (China no longer importing U.S. soybeans and Putin rushing to fill the Chinese demand for soybeans that used to be met by American farmers so that U.S. soybean sales to China will never come back.)
Shutdown? Trump doesn’t care about shutting down the government, because it is not the one he works for.