There’s no more reliable salesperson of official Donald Trump brand insanity than Kellyanne Conway. Now that Trump has demonstrated marginal support for an ally directly attacked with a Russian nerve agent, there’s absolutely no reason that anyone should think that Trump ever had anything to do with Russia.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said late Monday that President Trump's move to expel 60 Russian officials "upends" the narrative that he is unwilling to take a hard line against Moscow.
"It was decisive and swift action by our president, Donald Trump," Conway told Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs, arguing that the move runs counter to the notion that the president has been soft on Russia.
Naturally, Conway wasn’t quite so anxious to talk about Trump’s last phone call to Vladimir Putin, in which he offered the Russian autocrat congratulations for stealing another election despite an ALL CAPS warning not to do so. Or how until the Salisbury attack Trump had refused to apply the sanctions that were mandated in a law passed by Congress.
She also didn’t seem to notice that Donald Trump’s comments on the expulsion of Russian diplomats were … no comments at all. It hasn’t even rated a tweet. Trump has allowed some of his surrogates to mention how the United States is a tad miffed with Russia over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, his daughter, and at least three dozen other British citizens using a weapon of mass destruction. But Trump himself has remained firmly zip-lipped when it comes to saying anything against his buddy.
Considering that Russian diplomats were expelled yesterday from over 20 countries, it would have been far harder to explain why the United States didn’t follow suit than to get on the horn with Vlad and let him know America had to go along to get along.
Donald Trump’s “hard line against Russia” is exactly the same line that Canada, Australia, and every country in Europe follow. The only line that could be followed short of leaving everyone in the breach and openly siding with Putin.