(07-17-2018, 07:49 PM)EricC85 Wrote: Complete blunder by Trump, there's not getting around it, he completely caved to Putin on the international stage. At the very best he comes away looking intimidated by Putin and the very worse looking intertwined with Putin, both are bad. It's become undeniable that Russia was up to something, what exactly  or how much of an effect it had is debatable.  But for Trump to come out after a summit and say he see's no reason why Russia would attempt to undermine our elections and believe Putin's strong denial over our own intelligence, is as bad as Obama saying I'll have more flexibility after the election, and Bush saying I looked into his eyes and saw an honest man.

I wouldn't say he completely caved. We don't know how their meeting went. The crux of Trump's poor optics out of this came from his refusal to openly challenge Putin on Russian interference. An opinion piece I read somewhere  sized it up well, he put himself first before America. He utterly outworked Hillary Clinton to get elected and bristles at the assertion that it was attributable to any means otherwise (which it isn't). In his eyes, rebuking Putin on an international stage, especially when there are so many other important issues to address, lends credence to the opposition's mantra. Instead of countering Putin's claims of innocence with irrefutable American intelligence reports, he chose to attack Hillary and the deep state and came out looking weak in the end. It was a faux pas which the left is feasting upon, but in the grand scheme of things is meaningless. The noise will soon die down.

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