The Best Outcome Of The Alaska Summit Might Be Failure

As I write this post, Presidents Trump and Putin are preparing to meet in Alaska. Some media pundits seem to believe that the meeting will result in progress toward a lasting peace in Ukraine. I don't think that is possible. Here are my reasons.

* Both men are prolific liars. Even if some kind of agreement was reached, neither could be trusted to follow through on it, since both have a history of breaking promises they made.

* Trump seems to think Putin wants peace. He doesn't. What he wants is to re-establish the old Soviet Union, and that would require his taking all of Ukraine. And Putin seems to think he is winning and time is on his side.

* Putin is smarter than Trump. This was illustrated in Helsinki, when he manipulated Trump - making him look like a fool before the entire world.

* Trump thinks he and Putin are friends, and he can use that friendship to convince Putin to go along with him. They are not friends. They are a vicious dictator (Putin) and a person who admires and wants to be a dictator (Trump). That is not friendship.

* Putin is heading into the meeting with definite goals in mind. Trump heads into them with only a hope to do something.

Because of the above, if an agreement is reached it would most likely benefit Russia - not the United States or Ukraine.The best outcome we can hope for is that the meeting is a failure. 

Peace can be accomplished in Ukraine only by Russia's military defeat. Trump must finally recognize that for the good of Ukraine, Europe, and the United States.

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UPDATE - It looks like my best case scenario played out. Putin agreed to nothing, and Trump got nothing but manipulated. I guess we can be thankful Trump didn't get conned into giving away Alaska and half of Ukraine.

Trump's Singapore Summit Was A Colossal Policy Blunder

(This photo from cnbc.com is Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images.)

After meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un a few months ago, Donald Trump claimed he had convinced him to give up his nuclear weapons, and the American people (and the world) had nothing more to fear from North Korea. That was far from the truth.

After the meeting was over, North Korea continued to produce nuclear material capable of being turned into a bomb, and they actually increased their production of missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead for thousands of miles. Now we learn from NBC News that they have continued making those nuclear bombs, and taking action to hide the storage of those nuclear weapons. Not only has North Korea not taken any steps to denuclearize, they have not even slowed production of the nuclear weapons.

The Trump administration press secretary tried to put a good face on the failure by saying it's good that talks continue between the two nations. That is not true either. The North Koreans have been so uncooperative in those talks, that Trump has, at least for now, discontinued them.

The Singapore Summit was not just an epic failure, but it was also a colossal foreign policy blunder. And it has put the United States in a worse position than it was before the summit. By cutting out our allies and China, Trump painted himself into a corner, and left himself with no real options.

He cannot now take military action against North Korea. None of our allies would support that now, or take part in it. And the economic sanctions are now looser than ever. That's because China, worried about being left out of the summit and angered by Trump's trade war against them, are no longer taking those sanctions seriously. They have increased trade with North Korea, and the North Korean economy is doing better because of that.

The Singapore Summit only accomplished one thing for the U.S. -- it highlighted Donald Trump's incompetence and complete lack of understanding of diplomacy and foreign policy.

Public Is Not Happy With Trump's Helsinki Performance

Donald Trump is still trying to convince Americans that his meeting with Putin in Helsinki was a great success, but the public is not buying it. By a 17 point margin, adults disapprove of the way Trump handled the meeting (33% to 50%). And among registered voters, that margin increases to 21 points (33% to 54%).

Only one group approved of Trump's performance in Helsinki -- Republicans. All other groups disapproved.

This makes me wonder how good an idea it is to have Putin visit the White House right before the November election. It won't matter to GOP voters, but is it wise to remind other voters of how they feel about the Trump/Putin bromance - especially if they again meet in secret. A majority of Americans don't trust Trump, and a new summit where Trump praises Putin could just drive more voters to the polls (which is not what Republican candidates want to see).

The chart above reflects the results of a new ABC News / Washington Post Poll -- done between July 18th and 20th of a national sample of 464 adults, with a 5.5 point margin of error.

The new NBC News / Wall Street Journal Poll was also released on Sunday (see below). It was done between July 15th and 18th of a national sample of 900 registered voters, and had a margin of error of 3.3 points. The results were very similar to the ABC/WaPo Poll.

Public Doesn't Like How Trump Handled Helsinki Summit

It's now been several days since Trump met in secret with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, and both the American public and the U.S. government (and military) still has no idea what went on in the meeting. What we do know is that Trump was fawning all over Putin in the press conference that followed it. And he made it clear that he prefers the company and friendship of the Russian dictator to that of any of our best allies. It was an embarrassing and frightening spectacle to behold.

What did most Americans think about Trump's performance in Helsinki? They didn't like it. Two polls have now been released about the Helsinki meeting. In the first, 55% of adults, 83% of Democrats, and 53% of Independents said they disapproved of how Trump handled himself in Helsinki. In the second, 58% of adults, 91% of Democrats, and 62% of Independents disapproved.

There was only one group that approved of Trump's performance in Helsinki -- Republicans. In the first poll 68% approved, and in the second poll 79% approved. That makes me wonder if there's ANYTHING Trump could do that the Republican base would not approve of.

The CBS News Poll was done on July 17th and 18th of a national sample of 1,007 adults, and has a 4 point margin of error.

The Axios / SurveyMonkey Poll was done on July 16th and 17th of a national sample of 2,100 adults, and has a 3 point margin of error.

U.S. (& World) Should Be Frightened By Helsinki Summit

(Cartoon image is by Jimmy Margulies at jimmymargulies.com.)

The people of the United States, and the world, should be terrified at what they saw from Donald Trump in Helsinki. Never has an American president been seen to so obviously grovel to a Russian leader. Trump showed weakness by accepting Putin's denials, and seemed to embrace Putin as America's new best friend, while blaming U.S. intelligence, past presidents, Democrats, and the Mueller investigation as the reason why relations are bad between the two countries -- completely ignoring Russia seizing the Crimea, attacking the Ukraine, supporting Assad in Syria, and attacking our own democracy (as though these did not contribute to that poor relationship).

Ina tweet, Trump tried to blame the media (fake news) for the world being horrified at his appeasement of Putin. That won't fly. The entire world watched the press conference, and they saw him embracing Putin -- after attacking our best allies only a couple of days before. Putin, as the cartoon above shows, wiped the floor with Trump. Trump is either a weak and ignorant fool, or he's terrified that Putin will release some secret they know about him -- maybe both!

Here's is part of an incisive op-ed by Max Boot in The Washington Post:

If anyone is “the enemy of the people,” it is Trump himself.

Those are words I never thought I would write about an American president — even one as boorish and bigoted as Trump. But after his appalling performance in Helsinki at what CNN’s John King aptly called the “surrender summit,” questions about Trump’s loyalty to the American people will only intensify. Indeed, the question came up at the news conference itself. The Associated Press’s Jonathan Lemire courageously asked “does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump or his family?”. . .

The Russian president dismissed the issue as “nonsense,” but it was his answer that was nonsensical. Putin said that he was not even aware that Trump was in Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant when it has been previously reported that Trump invited him to attend. Putin declined but, according to The Post, he did send “a ‘friendly’ letter and a gift of a Russian lacquered box” to Trump. . . .

The sellout in Helsinki only adds further credence to this speculation about the true nature of Trump-Putin ties. Not only did Trump fail to call out the Russian strongman for his many crimes — he also attacked the FBI and accepted Putin’s assurances that Russia was not responsible for interfering in the U.S. election even though the U.S. intelligence community has provided overwhelming evidence that it did. “President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

We are past the point when such statements can be dismissed as naivete — especially when Trump has previously admitted that Russia did hack the election. We are past the point where Trump’s conduct can be ascribed to his belief that it is imperative to improve U.S.-Russia relations. If Trump doesn’t care about the state of U.S.-German relations, U.S.-Canadian relations or U.S.-U.K. relations — all of which he has damaged in the past month — why would he care about U.S. relations with a country that has one-fourteenth of America’s GDP and one-tenth of its defense budget? We are past the point where Trump’s conduct can be ascribed to his general sympathy for dictators. If he is waging a trade war on China’s dictator, why is he cozying up to Russia’s dictator?

We are past the point when Trump’s conduct — which leaves future elections wide open to Russian manipulation — can be ascribed to his unwillingness to do anything that will tarnish his glorious victory. It is true but insufficient to point out that that Trump’s unwillingness to acknowledge the Russian attack on America is putting his own interests above the country’s.

Even if Trump were thinking only in terms of his own political survival — his usual mode — he would be tougher on Putin, because he must realize that kowtowing to the Russian only strengthens suspicions of collusion. But Trump just cannot bring himself to do it. Is that because he hopes for more aid from Putin in the future — or because he is afraid of what Putin can reveal about him? Either way, he gives every impression of betraying his oath of office.

U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 3: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Trump’s own national security adviser said the Russian election attack constituted an “act of war.” So what does that make his boss? Some — including former CIA director John Brennan — now dare call it treason. That conclusion was once unthinkable. No longer.