Trump Just Announced His First Official Foreign Meeting Will Be With Vladimir Putin
It truly is astonishing how our illegitimate president-elect’s behavior is such a drastic reversal from the disjointed ramblings that he somehow passes off as rhetoric. Following the news that the American intelligence agencies know that the Russian Federation interfered in our election and likely is blackmailing Donald Trump to advance Russian interests, one would think that Trump might want to distance himself from his puppetmasters in the Kremlin and to perhaps assuage the concerns that even his fellow Republicans have about his cozy relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Not Trump, who is either too numbskulled to care about public perceptions or – more likely – is simply so overconfident he just doesn’t care. Why else would he plan for his very first foreign trip as President to meet Vladimir Putin?
A British newspaper, The Sunday Times reports that Trump officials have told British officials that the president-elect’s first foreign trip will be to Reykjavik, Iceland, where he will meet Putin for a “summit” on “nuclear disarmament.” The choice of Iceland is likely in emulation of Republican deity Ronald Reagan, who met Soviet General-Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on the island nation several decades ago.
A Trump adviser, in an extremely disturbing statement, said that Putin wants “prestige — centre stage at the summit, the one-on-one meeting, the hand on the back from Trump. That gives the US tremendous leverage. Mr Trump is master of the photo op and he will use that skill.” It is unclear that Donald Trump has realized international negotiations requires different skills than posing for paparazzi.
The idea that the two would be discussing nuclear disarmament is unlikely, because Putin has already announced his plan to expand and modernize Russia’s nuclear arsenal – which Trump echoed just a few hours later. Even if they are, it’s clear that their public declarations are not to be taken seriously. The dictator and the fascist traffic in lies as a matter of necessity; distorting reality and the truth is key to the concealment of their true machinations.
No matter the real reason behind the meeting, we should all be very, very worried.
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.