Putin spoke to Trump privately for the 8th time yesterday in a phone call. As written in a diary here, Rachel Maddow reported that in each of these private contacts, the White House didn’t tell the U.S. press anything prior to the discussion, and it ended up being the Kremlin releasing the news to the world each and every time. Journalists can’t figure out why that would be.
I sort of can. Putin and the Russians told the White House to not announce discussions. Or Trump and company are simply afraid to release such “news” ahead of time because someone might figure out what they're really talking about.
Regardless.
More news was made after the phone call, when Putin spoke to Palestinian leader Abbas:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that American President Donald Trump had authorized the Russian leader to speak on his behalf.
According to a Reuters report, Abbas and Putin spoke about the U.S. role in Mideast peace negotiations during a conference in Moscow.
The story actually gets worse, if that's possible. It all came about because Abbas told Putin that he couldn't accept the United States as a negotiator any longer in the Middle East because of Trump's instability in the White House. It was at that point that Putin was speaking on behalf of Trump - with authorization.
“We state that from now on we refuse to cooperate in any form with the U.S. in its status of a mediator, as we stand against its actions,” Abbas said.
Putin revealed during the meeting that he “had just spoken by telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump,” Reuters reported.
“Naturally we spoke about the Palestinian-Israeli settlement,” Putin said, telling Abbas: “I would like to convey to you his best wishes.”
Putin also commented that stability in the region is “far from what we want to see.
Originally, I had interpreted this as Putin announcing that he had authority to speak for the United States as a negotiator. I have looked at the story more, and it might have been nothing more than a response to hearing how much Abbas hated dealing Putin’s boy, Trump, and that Abbas was done with the Jackass. Putin them saying “Nah, just talked to the guy. He says to say hi and he loves you.”
And yet, even so, this is extremely telling and a very big deal, even if it was only that, because does anyone in the world doubt that Putin could say “Trump said to say …..” whether Trump authorized it or not?
Herein lies the true insidiousness of giving our country up to the Russians. If Putin knows, “I have Trump fully in my control.”? Then what’s stopping him from dropping “H.S. positions” on anything since he knows that Trump isn’t going to jump in front of a microphone and say “No, no no, that is not the U.S. position, you are not speaking on my behalf” all that?.
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I don’t think that in a normal “country to country” relationship, any nation would have a leader that says “I am conveying ...” It seems nations do not “convey,” and Putin has been on the world stage one hell of a long time, and knows how sensitive this would look. It just seems like it must be purposeful, even if he was just floating it to see how it would work.
Yet how friggin' weird and wrong is it for the president of Russia, the country supposedly sanctioned by ours for interfering in our election, to propose to speak for the United States! In the Middle East! Without anything from the White House put out beforehand as to why?(!)
Actually, the scariest part of this is that one knows that if Putin released that little bit of “best wishes” to the press, we can damn well bet that the ACTUAL discussion damn near certain had some other, more “substantive," messages relayed.
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Originally published on The Trump Impeachment
My work.