One day, President Trump thinks Russia’s President Putin can do no wrong. The next?
President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats the US identified as intelligence agents and the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle, the most forceful action Trump has taken against Russia to date. Of those being expelled, 48 of the alleged intelligence agents work at the Russian embassy in Washington and 12 are posted at the United Nations in New York, senior administration officials said. [CNN]
Yep, his changing affections make me dizzy. While it’s good to see some positive action from President Trump for a change, and especially as part of a coordinated action with a number of other countries, it’s hard not to see this as a distraction from the Stormy Daniels controversy, which is coming to a peak in the wake of last night’s broadcast of an interview with Daniels by Anderson Cooper.. I do notice that CNN is splitting its web-site welcome page between the two news items, presumably conscious of the possibility that this may simply be a distraction, although I remain skeptical about the importance of this sexual infidelity / campaign contribution infraction.
And the Russian reaction so far?
The Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov called the US decision to expel 60 Russian diplomats a “very bad step” and that the US “will understand what kind of grave mistake they did and I hope that maybe in the future our relations will be restored” in a video tweeted by embassy’s official twitter page on Monday.
“I consider this actions counterproductive. I said that the United States did very bad step, undercutting a little what we still have in Russian-American relations. These decisions are going against to the telephone conversation between our two presidents,” Antonov said.
The ambassador added: “it’s up to United States to decide what kind of relations they want to have with the Russian federation.” [CNN]
Vague and ambiguous. Is this a threat from Russia to the United States, or from Putin to Trump? The latter might be interpreted as “stop fucking around or I’ll release that compromising information I’ve been using to jerk you around.”
The next couple of days could be very interesting.
