It’s morning in America. No, literally. Which means that it’s time for the latest peek into the unpresidented id—your daily opportunity to see what Donald Trump has been wringing his tiny hands about as he wanders the halls at Mar-a-lago making everyone wish he’d just keep that bathrobe closed.
Trump’s said this before, at least three times (did anyone hear a cock crow?). The trouble with this statement is: everything. First up, Trump used to tell this story differently.
When Thomas Roberts of MSNBC asked Trump, "Do you have a relationship with Vladimir Putin? A conversational relationship or anything that you feel you have sway or influence over his government?" Trump responded, "I do have a relationship, and I can tell you that he's very interested in what we're doing here today.”
In case that was just a slip of the tongue, there was also this one ...
“I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.”
And as for the “no deals in Russia” part, there’s always Donald Junior’s reminder of where the money comes from.
Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.
Finally, the bit about the deal with Iran? That’s the silliest piece of all. Iran thinks so, too.
No one hates Donald Trump because he signed a treaty with Russia. It’s that he has a backroom deal (deals?) with Russia that he denies making, is covering up, and runs counter to the national interest—that’s the problem.
As far as making treaties with nations that are enemies to the United States, that’s what presidents do. Reagan, Gorbachev, that kind of thing?
Plus there’s those pesky facts where the Iran treaty required Iran to
- Give up 98% of it’s uranium, including all highly enriched uranium
- Reduce it’s centrifuge count from 19,000 to 6,100, destroy all its newer centrifuges, and keep the remaining centrifuges in a single, monitored location.
- Submit to continuous monitoring by the IAEA.
All of which keeps Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. No matter what Trump reads on InfoWars.
But maybe it will make Trump happy to know that people are paying attention to him.
See, Donald, they care. Now put some clothes on.