This exchange, between President Donald Trump and ABC’s Cecilia Vega at the close of a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, is breathtaking:
Vega: “Is Russia still targeting the US, Mr. President?”
Trump: “Thank you very much, no.”
Vega: “No, you don’t believe that to be the case?”
Trump: “Thank you very much everybody. We’re doing very well, probably as well as anybody has ever done with Russia. There’s been no President ever as tough as I have been on Russia.”
According to the President of the United States, Russia is done attacking the United States’ voting process as a way to sow broader discord and doubt about Western democracies. Which is reassuring! Except that it appears to be totally and completely wrong, contradicting repeated assertions from senior members of Trump’s own Cabinet that Russia views their 2016 election meddling as a giant success and is already at work in trying to influence the 2018 elections and beyond.
Just last Friday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats made clear not only that he believes Russia to be targeting the US, but that the threat posed is real and concerning. “The warning signs are there,” Coats said. “The system is blinking. It is why I believe we are at a critical point. Today, the digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack.”
So, yeah. And that’s far from the only time that Coats – not to mention Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – has said publicly that the threat posed by Russia is real and active. Here are a few others:
- “I have to say there is more work to do,” Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in May. “We have not been able to achieve deterrence, effective deterrence of some of these efforts of the Russians.” Added Pompeo: “We are at risk in 2018 and 2020 … we are always at risk.”
- “At a minimum, we expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople, and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,” Coats said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in February. “There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 US midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”
- “Russian activities during 2016 election may have been aimed at one party’s candidate, but as my colleague senator Rubio says frequently, in 2018 and 2020, it could be aimed at anyone, at home or abroad,” said Republican Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr in June.
There’s simply no one who is in a position to know who believes that Russia has ceased targeting the United States. In fact, everyone in a position to know – with the exception of Trump – believes Russia is already actively underway with significant disruption efforts aimed at the November midterm elections.
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So why would Trump say something that runs directly – and, I mean DIRECTLY – contrary to what the entire intelligence community in this country not only believes but has said time and time again publicly?
It’s possible – I guess – that he either misunderstood or misheard the question. But if you listen to the tape of the back-and-forth, Vega is the only person asking a question and there’s not much din in the room that would have made it hard for Trump to hear.
In fact, that’s the position the Trump administration took on Wednesday afternoon, in the wake of Trump’s comments. “The President was saying ‘no’ to answering questions,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said. “We are certainly taking steps so they can’t do it again,” she added in reference to Russian election interference. “We believe that the threat still exists.”
It’s much more likely that Trump said Russia isn’t targeting the US because it’s what he wants to believe. Remember that he spent the last 48 hours – and, really, the last 18 months as President – ignoring or playing down the intelligence findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 election for the purpose of helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. So it’s not all that much of a stretch for Trump to say that Russia isn’t targeting the US anymore either.
For Trump, “Russian interference” = “I didn’t win fair and square.” And he can’t take that. He simply will not de-couple the proven fact of Russian meddling in the election from his own insecurities about winning the White House without anyone’s help or aid. Asking anything about Russia targeting – either past, present or future – is like waving a red cape in front of a bull. Trump can’t resist charging it. It’s Pavlovian.
But that’s no excuse. Coming off a disastrous news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday – and an equally botched clean-up of that news conference – Trump is, yet again, publicly disagreeing with the findings of his intelligence community as it relates to Russia’s strategic initiatives to undermine American democracy.
It’s easy to lump this in with all of the other abnormal things Trump does each and every day in the White House. But this is a very big deal. And it’s a pattern of behavior. Trump just keeps making excuses for Russia and finding ways to undermine what his own intelligence agencies are telling him about the threat posed by Putin and his country. Don’t underplay that. It’s a big, big, big problem.