Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to defend congratulating President Vladimir Putin amidst criticism of the phone call considering recent news that the Russian president committed cyberwarfare against the United States in order to help Trump win the election, poisoned dissidents who spoke out against him, hacked U.S. infrastructure systems, and rigged his own country’s elections by ballot-stuffing and denying citizens the right to vote.
Despite all of the things Putin has done to weaken U.S. democracy and commit cyberattacks, Trump somehow believes that congratulating him and refusing to implement the sanctions that Congress overwhelmingly voted in favor of is a show of “strength.”
While it is true that President Obama congratulated Putin in 2012 when he won the last election, that was long before Putin hacked our elections or murdered his own people to silence them when they tried revealing his corruption. It is also true that having good relationships with other country’s leaders is “a good thing,” but that only seems to matter to Trump when that leader is Putin. When it’s Canada and Justin Trudeau, Trump brags about lying to him. When it’s leaders in African countries or Haiti, Trump insults them by calling them “sh*tholes.” When it’s Teresa May of the U.K., Trump has no problem publicly insulting her on Twitter for her country’s immigration policies.
As for Trump’s endless whining about how unfair the “fake news media” is to him, perhaps no one has explained to him that his national security team are not the mainstream media. Neither, for that matter, is Senator John McCain (R-AZ).
Of course, after Trump finished calling everyone who criticizes him the “fake news media,” he pivoted to his other two favorite scapegoats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. While it is true that Obama congratulated Putin, Hillary Clinton most certainly didn’t as Secretary of State. In fact, she called him out for denying his own people the right to vote in a democratic election.
That is “strength.”
Twitter had their own thoughts on the rambling, defensive president’s tweets. See some of their responses below:
Featured image via Getty/Pool
