Donald Trump, Security Threat

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Donald Trump, Security Threat

The call is coming from inside the White House

paulkrugman.substack.com

To update Samuel Johnson, these days national security is the last refuge of a scoundrel. According to Donald Trump, anything he doesn’t like is a threat to national security. Question his clearly illegal tariffs? You’re a dark and sinister force trying to undermine America. When the New York Times reported on signs that age may be taking a toll on Trump’s stamina, he denounced the reporting as “seditious, maybe even treasonous.”

But some of America’s allies — and many of us here at home — are becoming increasingly open about saying that the real danger is coming from inside the White House: Trump himself has become the biggest security threat facing the U.S. and, indeed, all the world’s democracies.

The full thing is a good read. At risk of hijacking more and better pieces of the article I do note this surprisingly:

Trump’s proposed “peace plan” for Ukraine not only reads like a Russian wish list, but it also uses some odd phrasing and syntax suggesting that it was translated from a Russian original.

My surprise isn't because of what the administration could borrow from, but instead that Krugman would mention it. This seems very interesting, possibly worth a separate thread so as not to distract everything else about the full scope of the security threat.

 

[crazyfingers]

It should have been known that Trump is a national security threat way back about 2015 when his son said that they can get all the money they need from the Russians.

 

[ideologyhunter]

We are simply reliving Trump One. In both '17 and '18 he had private sessions with Putin, with only a translator present. In 2017, he confiscated the translator's notes. The 2018 meeting was part of the Helsinki summit, at which he -- unbelievably -- stated that he trusted Putin over his own intelligence team on the question of Russian election interference. Minimal pushback on this behavior from Repubs. Had it been Obama, you know what explosions that would've caused. Fox and Friends would've asked why he wasn't flown back home in handcuffs (this is all I could think when Trump did it.) There would have been investigations, hearings, and an impeachment. There needs to be another -ocracy word for when you're being ruled by a Quisling. Swineocracy doesn't quite do it, and besides, hogs can be winsome.
Most disgusting, Trump supporters heard him utter these words about Putin in '18, and he didn't lose them. His estimate of their lack of judgment and standards is accurate.