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Aides sat 'helpless' as 'incoherent' Trump displayed 'stunning ignorance': biographer
During the Cold War, countless Republicans — from President Ronald Reagan to Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) — were scathing critics of the Soviet Union. And many hawkish Democrats shared their disdain.
But in the MAGA movement, it isn't hard to find Republicans and evangelical Christian nationalists who admire 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin — a former KGB agent and ex-communist who went from the far left to the far right. A common claim among MAGA Republicans is that Putin embodies the type of manliness that former U.S. President Barack Obama lacks.
Many Never Trump conservatives, along with Democrats, are highly critical of the way President Donald Trump handled the Friday, August 15 summit with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska. Putin, they lament, had the upper hand.
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Author and Trump biographer Michael Wolff, during an appearance on The Daily Beast's "Inside Trump's Head' podcast posted on August 19, argued that Trump failed to show a knowledge of Cold War history in Anchorage. According to Daily Beast and Wolff's characterization of the summit, Trump's aides sat "basically helpless" as "incoherent" Trump displayed "stunning ignorance."
Putin, according to Wolff, gave a bogus "history lesson" on "why (Russia) should conquer Ukraine." And the author added, "Trump, not to be outdone, as this is relayed to me, goes into his own history lesson, and this is a history of the Cold War. And as this is described to me, in Trump's history of the Cold War, it would appear that the U.S. and USSR are on the same side."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff were present during the Trump/Putin summit in Anchorage. But Wolff believes that Trump did the meeting a huge disservice by interrupting Rubio and Witkoff constantly and not giving them a chance to voice their concerns.
Wolff explained, "They sit there occasionally trying to interject, but you can't really interject because Trump just talks all the time. And this is then to.... Putin's advantage, because rather than any discussion of the details of what might happen here, what territory — what are you going to give for that, what are the trade-offs — I mean, that level of detail Trump is not interested in, probably not capable of following the logical sequences that would be necessary there."
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Watch the full Daily Beast video at this link (subscription required).
