While Donald Trump loves to insist that he’s been “tougher on Russia than any president in history,” too much of his political agenda aligns with the former KGB agent currently in charge in Russia, Vladimir Putin, and his own plans.
The House of Representatives, led by a majority of Democrats in the House, took measures to ensure Trump can’t do the worst. To protect the U.S.’s long-held alliances with NATO countries, Dems proposed a bill to keep Trump from withdrawing.
Reuters reports that:
‘The Democratic-led House approved the measure by a bipartisan 357-22 vote, with the only “no” votes coming from Republicans. It now goes to the Republican-majority Senate, where its future is unclear, although a similar measure has been introduced there.’
HKS's @RNicholasBurns says that leaving NATO at a time of Russian aggression would be geopolitical malpractice https://t.co/7HNRK0mjSA
— Harvard Kennedy School (@Kennedy_School) January 22, 2019
The bill will now move to the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s reaction to that will be quite telling. McConnell has so far allowed Trump to do his worst to the American people in terms of a government shutdown, so whether or not he’ll bring this bill to the floor, despite its bipartisan support, is anyone’s guess.
Senate Majority Leader Stony Heyer told reporters:
‘This bill … makes it clear that the United States Congress still believes (in) the NATO mission and will prevent any short-sighted efforts to undermine NATO or unilaterally withdraw our country.
This means Trump was working on a deal in Russia while praising Putin, calling for an end to Russia sanctions, calling NATO "obsolete," and AFTER the US government warned that Russia was trying to influence the election in his favor. https://t.co/p2g1tKlViR
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) January 21, 2019
The bill follows reporting from The New York Times in which sources inside Trump’s administration were reported to have been concerned about Trump’s repeated interest in withdrawing from NATO.
‘Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.’
In just the past 10 days, we've learned:
–The FBI has investigated whether the president is working on behalf of Putin.
–Trump tried to hide the details of his meetings with him.
–Manafort shared polling data w/ a potential Russian agent.
–Trump is considering leaving NATO.— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 16, 2019
While many aspects of Trump’s presidency are downright terrifying, but his stated wish to end the U.S. alliance that has helped to protect our country since WWII is possibly the most terrifying story yet. National security officials are horrified at the idea.
‘The president’s repeatedly stated desire to withdraw from NATO is raising new worries among national security officials amid growing concern about Mr. Trump’s efforts to keep his meetings with Mr. Putin secret from even his own aides, and an F.B.I. investigation into the administration’s Russia ties.’
Tomorrow night, I'm live from DC and joining me at 4:30 PT, Congressman @RepSwalwell from House intelligence committee. We'll be talking about where Trump hid the notes from his meeting with Putin. (This guy could be President.)https://t.co/CvLhhb0SDO
— Chip Franklin (@chipfranklin) January 14, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
