Amb McFaul: "That would be a crazy number of calls to any foreign leader. But to Putin?"

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Michael McFaul @McFaul

According to reporting including @MeetThePress , Trump called Putin 6 times in 2 months - March 30th, April 9th, April 10th, April 12, May 7th, June 1 ! That would be a crazy number of calls to any foreign leader. But to Putin? What on earth were they discussing? So strange.

12:45 PM · Jul 5, 2020

[dawnie51]

1. He's getting his instructions......

he doesn't come up with all this crap by himself.

[triron]

27. I don't understand why McFaul just doesn't seem to get it. WTF?

How dense can you be? Maybe he's afraid to say it.

[Dopers_Greed]

29. He is hinting at just that

A diplomat is probably not able to speculate like a DU'er

[FakeNoose]

38. I know he gets it - he's waiting for the rest of the country to figure this out

McFaul was there in Russia when it all went down. He had his own run-ins with Pootie, and he knows what Pootie is capable of. Don't kid yourself for one minute.

Having been an Ambassador representing the US government, McFaul isn't able to reveal some of the things he knows - but he can certainly drop a few hints here and there. The former intelligence leaders like Brennan, Clapper and others also know way more than can reveal in their books and and in the media.

Just sayin'

[Mme. Defarge]

2. I cannot seriously believe

that the subject of the pandemic, and how to handle it, did not come up. What’s happening in the U.S. on that front has to be making the Russian dictator very happy.

[Mike 03]

5. +1

[bdamomma]

3. It's not strange at all

puppet is receiving his orders from Putin to put a fork in all of us.

[mac56]

4. "You hang up first." "No, YOU hang up first..."

[tanyev]

7. LOL, that was my first thought, too.

[sprinkleeninow]

12. "Пошли мне воздушный поцелуй, pootchski!"

"Blow me a kiss, pootchski!"

[zentrum]

22. Very funny!

[Nevilledog]

6. Tweet thread on timing of calls between trump and Putin and trump actions

Link to tweet

?s=20

[crickets]

11. +1

[DallasNE]

30. Those Phone Calls Explain

Why Trump didn't get a full briefing on the bounty on soldiers issue. He calls Putin more often than he calls Melania.

[smirkymonkey]

8. K&R

[stillcool]

9. June 1st was the day of Lafayette Square...

ambush on protesters, per the orders of...Barr?

[CanonRay]

10. It's not strange

I used to have to check in with my boss more than that.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

13. Funny how we have no oversight on these calls

You would think a Patriot or two would listen in or record this crap by now.

The repubs are all in bed with Putin and the Russians .

[CloudWatcher]

14. The WH doesn't tell us about the calls.

Most of the calls between Trump and Putin ... we hear about them from Moscow. The WH usually keeps them secret.

[Sancho]

15. Trying to hide all the money before the SC decision...or get the story straight...

[Fla Dem]

16. He's getting his instructions on how to take this country to an authoritarian dictatorship.

I mean look at China's slide to totalitarianism with China's ruler for life; President Xi Jinping. Or N Korea's totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship led by Supreme leader Kim Jong-un, Brazil's far right president, Bolsonaroor or Turkey strongman Erdoğan. These are all leaders Trump admires and wants to emulate.

This is the reality Trump wants to govern in. He wants to be all powerful, with no one, not Congress or laws to question his actions. He gets his weekly inspiration and encouragement from Putin, who whispers sweet nothings in his ear and then molds him like clay.

[ashredux]

17. Working out carpet colors for his Dacha

[EleanorR]

18. June 1st, the day he attacked peaceful protesters for a photo op

Did he call his daddy before to get the idea approved, or after to get a pat on the back?

[milestogo]

19. Phone Sex

[TomVilmer]

20. It is not a crazy number of calls to Russia...

This is the same amount of calls Obama made to Putin in two months. Whatever the presidents are, I am happy when they talk more than they shoot. But pick more solid arguments - Trump is doing so much real crazy stuff...

[Skittles]

33. do not compare Trump to Obama

Obama was a REAL president - Trump is *NOT*

[TomVilmer]

34. Dats what i wrote too...

... But again: Do not spread argument against Trump which is so easily disproved. It is just lazy and counterproductive.

[MrsCoffee]

40. You have disproved nothing.

[MrsCoffee]

37. No it's not the same.

At least be accurate. There were 5 calls in 6 months between Obama and Putin. All of them were about Syria.

No comparison. Period.

[Maeve]

39. Actually, your source says otherwise

The Obama calls were over more than two months

[TomVilmer]

41. Yep, 5 in 30something days...

And I still get very tired when good people use bad arguments. Or nitpick the difference between 5 or 6. I was not trying to make big statistical analysis. Just asking for some better arguments against Trump.

As an example it is much more interesting for me that Trumps throws more bombs in other peoples countries than ever. And very few people seems to care. Except the ones getting hit...

[MrsCoffee]

42. 5 in six months dude. While shit was escalating in Syria.

Quit bullshitting. Or learn to calendar.

[TomVilmer]

46. Since you asked so very nicely...

... I did collect the numbers for you: Some selected conversations with Putin in 2014: January 21, February 22, March 2, 7, 17, 29 and April 14. Though I do not understand the need for your strong language...

I am actually happy that world leaders talks with pariah states and not just bomb them. Some of them even still talks to that very weird leader the United States has elected. Polite dialogue is important, even more with enemies - and so is facts.

[blakstoneranger]

21. NANCY PELOSI WAS RIGHT!!!

All roads lead to putin. We're sitting here everyday listening to his idiot pretend to be a patriotic american when he's nothing more than a handmaiden for russia. I hope people are paying attention to what's going on. THIS GUY IS A MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE!!

[SayItLoud]

23. Hide in plain site.

Just staggeringly amazing that someone, anyone around him is not blowing the treason whistle. I hope that when tRUMP escapes with his Federal pardons some States will hold him and his crime family accountable (not for white collar, fine, but serious jail time).... AND that the Democratic AG will go after all of tRUMP enablers who looked the other way as tRUMP sold out America.

[Cha]

24. Talking about how Putin has a Bounty on American & UK Soldiers in Afghanistan?

[Baitball Blogger]

25. In cahoots, cahoots, cahoots.

[RVN VET71]

26. Trump, you remember, offered McFaul up to Putin

For interrogation!

Seriously. A former ambassador to Russia and Trump was willing to ship him out to the Kremlin for Putin's boys to, umm, "interview" him. Why? Because Trump's bestie asked for it.

McFaul didn't go, of course. But the very fact that it seemed a reasonable idea to the moron in charge of America sent me to screaming at the ceiling. McFaul is everything Trump hates: he's well educated, knows his job, understands world politics and America's (formerly) proper role in it, and, of course, he reads voluminously and has a vocabulary beyond 3rd grade.

And the President of the Marching Morons wanted him whisked away to an uncertain future in Russia. I don't think Putin pressed Trump on it, but only because the request was made half in jest. I'm guessing that when Trump said yes, Putin, delighted to find what a malleable fool Trump, in fact, is, just made a note of it for future reference. Future reference? Like, maybe, if Russia offers big dollar bounties to Afghan thugs to murder American soldiers, America will be OK with it, yes?

Any other so-called President would have been impeached for making the offer. And at a time when America had two major American political parties, the verdict would have been guilty.

[Tanuki]

35. Thanks for bringing that up! That was horrifying, and yet I had almost forgotten

in the tsunami of daily shocking and shameful news that characterizes this administration. It is also depressingly consistent with his indifference to Putin placing a bounty on the lives if U S troops.

[RVN VET71]

43. Not to dwell on this despicable issue overlong but

what if an Obama or a Clinton had made the same offer? Fox News would have exploded. Hannity and Ingraham and the 3 doofuses in the morning would have gone into such a rage that their hate-gases would have been banned from public view. McConnell and the Party of Traitors would have moved immediately for impeachment. And "McFaulgate" would have followed Obama and Clinton to the ends of the terms in office (if they weren't expelled via impeachment) and well beyond.

But with the moron in charge? Eh, just another day at the opera.

If Biden wins in November, I think America will have a government that I can, once again, dislike and even grow angry about from time to time. But I won't hate it, absolutely hate it.

I stand with the Chicks who said it best while stupid-Bush was the prez, but I am so much more than ashamed at the authoritarian, racist, illiterate, angry, childish, fascist, over-the-hill maggot currently polluting our house. (Actually, much as I disliked Bush as president, I think I might be able to sit down and talk baseball with him over a beer. If and when Trump is dragged out of house, the only thing I'd want to do with him is, alas, something that would put me in prison for the mere thinking.)

[Jarqui]

28. The Pee Pee tape that just keeps on giving & giving ...

[Joel Eyeforth]

31. They're discussing Donnie's Wedding Dress

Bank on it!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

32. A super-secret video of one of the Trump-Putin phone calls has been leaked:

Meanwhile in the real world:

&list=RDJJmqCKtJnxM&index=2

[Maxheader]

36. Looking for help..

Stumpy isn't prepared to leave the security of the oval office. The plan was 4 more years..

Cut all the strings...litigations...retire in splendor...

You can bet the winger congress fucks...are worried too....

[RVN VET71]

44. 4 more years? I think his "feelings" were a little broader than that

In the back of his tiny, fetid brain is an image of him, as you say, "retiring" after 4 years but maintaining control of the People's House by securing the position for Don Jr or some other moron -- maybe Ivanka -- and keeping his hate on through him or her.

The only escape from Trump is Biden. Biden as President and Trump simply declining into the shadowy emptiness of dementia while his namesake, and his forbidden love go to jail for extended periods while the fraudulent financial empire he gained through theft and lying is restored to its rightful owners leaving all of his spore penniless and friendless, scrounging for crusts in alley-ways, fighting rats for . . . I think you get my point, but I could go on forever.

[kentuck]

45. Mitch is not even curious.