Why Trump’s Russia Retraction Falls Flat

Scarcely more than 24 hours after his triumphant press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump walked back some of his criticism of American intelligence agencies. Trump’s comments had been rebuked by many Republicans and been ridiculed around the world.

During their joint press conference, President Trump answered a question about Russian hacking during the 2016 election, saying, “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the [hacked DNC] server. But I have — I have confidence in both parties.”

By Tuesday afternoon, President Trump was backtracking, saying that he “realized there is some need for clarification.”

"In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't,' " the President said, explaining that he had reviewed a transcript and video of his remarks.

"The sentence should have been: 'I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia,' " he said. "Sort of a double negative."

There are several problems with this explanation. First, the furor should have been immediately apparent to the presidential staff. It should not have taken 24 hours to make such a simple correction.

Just a few hours before the retraction, Trump tweeted that the meeting with Putin was “even better” than his “great meeting“ with NATO. Only the “Fake News” saw it differently, Trump said. If the problem was a simple misstatement, a quick tweet could have resolved the issue much earlier.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1019225830298456066?s=21

Second, the retraction fails to address the other equivocations from President Trump. In the same answer, Trump began by falsely claiming that the FBI had not examined the hacked servers from the DNC then compared Putin’s denial with the claims of US intelligence.

“With that being said, all I can do is ask the question, Trump said. “My people came to me — [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me and some others — they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.”

Trump then riffed on Hillary’s missing emails, saying again that Russia could probably find them before returning to the theme that Putin’s denial was as convincing as what he heard from US Intelligence.

“So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump continued. “And what he did is an incredible offer; he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.”

Trump claims that he misspoke on one phrase, but what he said was consistent, not only with the rest of the press conference, but also his message of the past few years. Trump has expressed admiration for Putin for years and has denied that he believes Russia was involved in hacking the election since 2016.

Finally, there was another tell that indicated Trump’s lack of sincerity. In another passage of his retraction, Trump added an unscripted remark that indicated what he really thought.

”I have a full faith and support for America's great intelligence agencies," Trump said. "I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place — could be other people also."

“Could be other people also."

With those weasel words at the end of the sentence, the president negated almost everything that had come before. The evidence points toward Russia. Either the president believes the evidence or he believes Vladmir Putin. Who he actually believes is obvious.

President Trump does not back down often. The only other instances that come easily to mind are his abortive flip-flop on gun control and a series of flips on immigration, most recently backing down on family separations. These instances show that the president has the political instinct to retreat from unpopular positions, especially when his base begins to crack. His Russian retraction seems to be another political retreat rather than any real reversal of opinion.

Originally published on The Resurgent

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Ben Sasse Tweets About Putin

The big item on the agenda for today is the face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting in Helsinki, Finland comes three days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers in connection with cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and the US election infrastructure in 2016.

In advance of the meeting, polling shows that Russia and Putin have become more popular in the US. Since the 2016, despite revelations about Russian cyberattacks, there has been a “reset” of opinions about the country, primarily among Republicans. Gallup recently found that the share of Republicans who view Moscow as an ally has doubled since Donald Trump took office. Perhaps that is why Nebraska Republican Ben Sasse felt compelled to take to Twitter to educate the public about Mr. Putin.

Sasse has recently reappeared on Twitter after a self-imposed hiatus that has lasted most of this year. The Trump-sized tweetstorm on the senator’s popular Twitter account began with the questions, “Exactly who is Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader our president is about to meet with in Helsinki? And what does he want?”

“It’s a complicated question. But here’s what we do know,” Sasse continued.

“Putin is a murderer. He has ordered the assassinations of political adversaries and used outlawed chemical weapons to do it.  He oversees Russian military units that shot down Malaysian flight 17 and murdered almost 300 civilians.

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018679209101791232

“Putin is a crook and a liar.  He has broken almost every agreement he has signed with the United States, including on Syria and Ukraine. He has become one of the world's richest men through embezzlement and stealing from his own people.

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018679838381608960

“Putin is an enemy of America. He sees us as his main enemy and is engaged in ongoing attacks on our nation through information warfare and hacking our infrastructure.  It’s not just that he messed with our election in 2016; he attacks us regularly, and will again in 2018.

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018680626520772609

“Remember, Putin ordered the influence operations that have been exposed in the most recent indictments, did not hesitate to invade Ukraine and Georgia, organized a coup in Montenegro, funded xenophobic political parties across Europe, and crippled Estonia with cyberattacks.

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018681102519685121

“No matter how much Putin flatters the President, he is a KGB thug who jails political opponents, encourages/orders the murder of Russian dissidents and defectors at home and abroad, and who directs a military that bombs women, children, and the injured in hospitals in Syria.”

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018681879355158528

The Sasse tweetstorm abated with advice for President Trump. “I don't think President Trump should be dignifying Putin with this meeting,” Sasse said. “When Reagan met with Gorbachev, he did so from a position of strength & moral clarity about the evil empire that the Soviet Union was, and w/ a clear purpose to end the Soviet Union's threat to the US.”

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018684157780774912

“President Trump should have only one message for Putin tomorrow,” Sasse concluded. “Quit messing with America.”

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018686986046050305

But Sasse wasn’t completely finished yet. President Trump, who has yet to condemn the Russian cyberattacks on the US addressed in the indictment, tweeted this morning, it was to attack the “Rigged Witch Hunt” rather than the Russian assault on the foundation of American democracy.

“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” the president tweeted before his historic closed-door meeting with the neo-Soviet ruler.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1018738368753078273

“A better thing, Mr. President, would be to declare: ‘Russia is the enemy of America and our allies, and we will expose and respond to their continued cyber-attacks against our nation,’” Sasse replied.

https://twitter.com/BenSasse/status/1018816046868914176

Welcome back to Twitter, Sen. Sasse. We have missed your outspokenness and honesty over the past few months.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump Ignores Teddy Roosevelt's Advice - And His Own

Once upon a time, an American president said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” About a hundred years after that, another American who would later become president said, “Why do we keep broadcasting when we are going to attack Syria. Why can't we just be quiet and, if we attack at all, catch them by surprise?” Now President Trump seems to have ignored both his own advice to President Obama and the counsel of Theodore Roosevelt.

Since the latest Syrian gas attack on civilians last weekend, President Trump and American allies have threatened retaliatory action. Russia, which has troops in Syria supporting the regime, responded with a threat to shoot down any missiles used to strike Assad's forces.

President Trump responded with a tweet this morning that said, “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and 'smart!' You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”

A second tweet a short time later was more conciliatory, as if perhaps John Kelly might have alerted the president to the fact that he just threatened to start what could potentially become WWIII. Trump appealed to Vladimir Putin, saying, “Our relationship with Russia is worse now than it has ever been, and that includes the Cold War. There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy, something that would be very easy to do, and we need all nations to work together. Stop the arms race?”

A third tweet on the subject, about 90 minutes later, was the obligatory swipe at the Mueller and the Russia investigation as well as a denial of collusion. “Much of the bad blood with Russia is caused by the Fake & Corrupt Russia Investigation, headed up by the all Democrat loyalists, or people that worked for Obama. Mueller is most conflicted of all (except Rosenstein who signed FISA & Comey letter). No Collusion, so they go crazy!”

In telegraphing his intention to strike Syria, President Trump ignored his own advice and his successful strategy from last year. Just over a year ago, after a previous Syrian gas attack, Trump ordered a surprise missile raid on the Syrian airbase that had launched the attack.

With his warning to Syria and Russia, this time President Trump has upped the ante. There can be no doubt that Syrian air defenses, which include Russian forces, will be on high alert. This may needlessly put American pilots at risk.

A better tactic would have been the one successfully used by Trump last year – and by the Israelis earlier this week. As suggested so long ago by Teddy Roosevelt, President Trump should avoid the war of words and hit the Syrians without warning if a strike is truly his intent.

Over the past decade, the world has gotten used to strong talk from the United States. All too often that talk is not accompanied by action. When President Obama drew his line in the sand and then did nothing, American credibility suffered. Obama had previously said, “Assad must go,” but again did nothing.

Last year, President Trump backed his words with a one-off missile strike, but ultimately put Syria on the back burner. Last weekend's gas attack was preceded by President Trump's instructions to the military to prepare for a withdrawal of all forces from Syria. A similar unilateral withdrawal from Iraq by President Obama allowed ISIS to flourish.

Strongly worded tweets are not sufficient to win the war in Syria. President Trump should take the advice that he and President Roosevelt offered so long ago. Talk to military commanders instead of tweeting to the world. Find a winning strategy and use it to hit the enemy... hard.

Further, winning in Syria requires a long-term commitment, not just a quick missile strike. If the US withdraws, Russia and Iran will be the dominant players in the region. This would put a large hostile force on the border of Israel and perilously close to the oil fields of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Nature abhors a vacuum, and, as Barack Obama found out, so do terrorist groups and despotic regimes. Hopefully, President Trump will learn from President Obama's missteps.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump's Golf Course Diplomacy Trolls Putin

True to his promise to be unpredictable, Donald Trump had an unpredictable reaction to Russia’s decision to expel 755 of approximately 1,200 U.S. diplomatic staff in retaliation for the passage of the new Russia sanctions bill. In response to the largest expulsion of diplomats in modern times, President Trump did something that he rarely does: He publicly thanked Vladimir Putin for his help in reducing the State Department payroll.

Russia ordered the U.S. to reduce the number of its diplomats in Russia to 455, the same number of Russian diplomats in the U.S. after President Obama expelled 35 in retaliation for Russian meddling in the election. In a statement, Russia said that the new sanctions showed “the extreme aggression of the United States in international affairs.”

In an example of “golf course diplomacy” from his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. where he is on a “working vacation,” President Trump told reporters, “I want to thank him [Putin] because we’re trying to cut down our payroll and as far as I’m concerned I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll. There’s no real reason for them to go back. I greatly appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We’re going to save a lot of money.”

Trolling level: Above average. The president is obviously drawing on years of experience as a Twitter troll in this response.

The typical response from a leader that is an experienced diplomat would be to issue a sternly worded statement to the effect that Russia had better straighten-up-and-fly-right. The Russians would have responded with another stern communique in a tit-for-tat. Instead, Trump has rewritten the playbook with a sarcastic personal message aimed directly at President Putin.

Putin and most of the rest of the world know that Trump’s statement was utter BS, to use an appropriate, but impolitic term, but it still comes across as a slap in the face to Putin. Inside, we all know that Donald Trump, the egomaniac who cannot stand to be disrespected, must be seething. The president typically has a strong reaction to much smaller and less formal slights. Take, for instance, his blistering attacks on Jeff Sessions, one of Trump’s earliest and strongest supporters.

Beyond the emotional reaction that Trump is undoubtedly repressing, there is the fact that Trump’s statement is blatantly false. Few people would expect that these diplomats are going to be fired because Russia sent them home. They will likely be retrained and reassigned to other posts. The savings on living expenses of having fewer U.S. diplomats in Russia would be negligible in terms of the entire State Department budget.

The expulsions also represent difficulty for U.S. intelligence. An unknown number of the diplomats are almost certainly spies. Although spies will remain, their increased workload will mean that they accomplish less. Fewer Americans also means that it will be easier for Russian counterintelligence to watch and track those who remain.

The cuts will also affect the ability of the U.S. embassy to conduct legitimate business. Vladimir Frolov, a foreign affairs analyst, told the Independent, “It will create an enormous inconvenience for the US Mission here, essentially slowing down the work but not affecting its core functions.” The cuts could affect the ability of U.S. businesses to work in Russia.

By cutting the U.S. foreign service staff by about two-thirds, Vladimir Putin is playing mind games with President Trump. Trump’s sharp, albeit transparent, response, returned the ball to Putin’s court in one of the few examples of the president standing strong against Putin. 

Read the full article on The Resurgent

Putin Defends Trump On Secret Sharing Scandal

President Vladimir Putin of Russia is coming to the aid of President Trump in the controversy over Trump’s sharing of classified information with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister last week. Putin says that he can prove that President Trump did not do anything wrong.

On Wednesday, speaking at a press conference in Sochi, Russia, Putin denied that Trump had shared secrets with the Russian delegation. “I spoke to him [Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] today,” a smiling Putin said in Reuters. “I'll be forced to issue him with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us. Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia's intelligence services. It was very bad of him.”

Putin also offered to hand over a Russian transcript of the meeting as evidence to support the American president. According to Kremlin officials, the Russians made a written transcript of the meeting, but did not make an audio recording.

Putin also took the opportunity to criticize the opposition to President Trump as “political schizophrenia.” The “schizophrenia” is a result of what the US intelligence community said was interference in the US presidential election by Russia on behalf of Donald Trump.

“What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans,” Putin continued. “Either they don't understand the damage they're doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt.”

Even though President Putin denies that Trump shared classified information, President Trump himself seemed to admit to the breach. In two tweets on Tuesday, the president said, “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining… to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.” Administration denials do not answer the accusation by the Washington Post that Trump shared information that was so closely held that it was not even given to US allies.

Putin is obviously enjoying the chaos in America immensely.

A Russian goal during the election was to destabilize American democracy and faith in government. Putin seems to be continuing along those lines by stirring the pot with his comments. His offer of a written transcript should not be taken seriously and any transcript he provided would not be reliable.

There is a better solution, however. In a May 12 tweet, President Trump alluded to “tapes” that may exist of his conversations with FBI Director Comey. Since then, former associates have come forward to say that Trump frequently recorded conversations.

An easy solution would be for President Trump to turn over any recordings of the meeting with the Russians to Congress. Let the bipartisan House Intelligence Committee listen to the conversation and determine if the president’s comments were out of line or jeopardized national security.

And, by the way, it would probably be a good idea to turn over the Comey tapes to the House Judiciary Committee as well.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Originally published on The Resurgent

Republicans are breaking with Donald Trump

As President Trump’s missteps mount, some Republicans are starting to distance themselves from the two-week-old administration. The president has made many controversial moves including the temporary immigration ban, the newly contentious relationships with Mexico and Australia, Trump’s defense of Vladimir Putin and, not least of all, his attacks on the judges who ruled against his immigration Executive Order. One of the most high-profile Republicans to break with President Trump is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Over the weekend, McConnell told CNN, a network that Trump Administration officials no longer appear on, that he disagreed with the president on several important points. McConnell said that he didn’t want to “critique the president’s every utterance,” but then offered his critique on several recent utterances.

Responding to Mr. Trump’s defense of Vladimir Putin, Sen. McConnell offered unequivocal condemnation of the Russian president. “He [Putin] is a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election,” McConnell said. “I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does.”

McConnell also disagreed with Trump’s angry tweets attacking judges who overruled his immigration ban. “I think it’s best not to single out judges for criticism,” McConnell said. “We all get disappointed from time to time…  but I think it’s best to avoid criticizing judges individually.”

Mr. McConnell also expressed a lack of support for President Trump’s call for an investigation of alleged voter fraud during last year’s election. “I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that,’’ McConnell said. “We ought to leave that at the state level.”

State elections officials have found no evidence of massive fraud in the election. Even the White House seems to be quietly allowing the voter fraud claim to die without President Trump’s promised investigation.

Some Republicans started to break with Trump after his immigration ban was unveiled. Representatives Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) took issue with the Executive Order’s broad reach that prevented legal residents and green card holders from reentering the United States. In Politico, Rep. Dent described a family of Syrian Christians in his district who had immigrated legally, “yet were detained at the Philadelphia International Airport and then forced to leave the country as a result of the Executive Order. This family now faces the uncertain prospect of being sent back to Syria.”

President Trump’s minimizing of Vladimir Putin’s murderous history has inspired more Republicans to take a stand as well. Senators Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) condemned Trump’s comment that, “We have a lot of killers… You think our country is so innocent?”

Not all Republicans are breaking with the president though. On CBS, Vice President Mike Pence denied that Trump had established a moral equivalency between Russian authoritarianism and the United States. ““I simply don’t accept that there was any moral equivalency in the president’s comments,” Pence said. “Look, President Trump throughout his life, his campaign, and in this administration has never hesitated to be critical of government policies by the United States in the past. But there was no moral equivalency.”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) has also been hesitant to directly criticize President Trump since the election. In spite of their policy differences, Ryan has taken the middle road by couching his criticism of the president is very specific, factual terms.

Speaker Ryan told NBC, “This president is hardly the first one to express frustration with the judicial branch. What's important is his administration is complying with the ruling and taking the proper steps to resolve the issue quickly. This is our system of divided government, and I'm confident that when the process runs its course the order will be upheld.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump did not drop sanctions on Russia

Despite reports to the contrary, the Trump Administration has not eased sanctions on Russia. Initial reports indicated that President Trump’s Justice Department had reduced sanctions on the FSB, Russia’s security service that replaced the KGB, to allow American companies to sell software to the agency.

Subsequent analysis of the revision by several news agencies indicates that the sanctions on the FSB are still in place, but the change allows American companies to work with the organization to sell products inside Russia. According to the Wall Street Journal, the FSB is more than a security agency. The organization also licenses encryption technology for private businesses in Russia. The purpose of the revision in the Obama sanctions policy is designed to allow US companies to sell products like cellphones and tablets that contain encryption technology. These products must be licensed through the FSB to be imported into Russia.

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), a strong supporter of sanctions on Russia, told reporters that the change was a “technical fix.” Others have characterized the revision as a “tweak” that benefits American exporters, but not the FSB.

It seems to have been the Russians who fed the false narrative that the change was a major shift in sanctions policy. “This shows that actual joint work on establishing an anti-terrorism coalition is about to begin,” Nikolai Kovalyov, former head of the FSB and current member of the Russian Duma, told Tass. “Without easing these sanctions it would have been impossible to take the next step. These practical actions indicate that US President Donald Trump has been consistent.”

“I haven't eased anything,” RT, the Russian propaganda source, quoted President Trump as saying in a later article.

Press secretary Sean Spicer, quoted in the same article, confirmed, “We are not easing sanctions.”

Snopes quickly clarified the details of the controversy citing Ankit Panda, editor of “The Diplomat,” who explained, “It's a limited $5,000 sanctions relief ceiling that allows the United States to pay the FSB for certain export licenses for American products into Russia. It's a technical form of relief that was planned under the Obama administration.”

Snopes also quoted Doug Jacobson, an attorney who specializes in international trade law, who noted that the sanctions were not intended to prevent US companies from selling to Russian businesses. “They are not the target of the restrictions -- it’s to penalize FSB, not U.S. companies,” Jacobson said. “This doesn’t allow sales to the FSB, that’s still prohibited. It removes this impediment that would restrict U.S. companies from transporting products to otherwise unsanctioned parties in Russia... This was no gift to Putin.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Kompromat: The new Russian buzzword

There is a new Russian word that is suddenly in vogue. If you haven’t heard it yet… Well, you’re about to. “Kompromat” may be destined to be one of 2017’s words of the year.

Russian words have entered the English vernacular in the past. Beyond “vodka,” there were “glasnost” and “perestroika” from the days Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, for example. The Russian words for “openness” and “restructuring” were buzzwords during Gorbachev’s attempt during the 1980s to remake the Soviet Union in order to save it. Students of military history know the word “maskirovka,” the Russian term for a military deception. “Kompromat” is a word that may contain elements of all three of these familiar words. It might also include vodka.

Kompromat is defined by NPR as “compromising material used to discredit rivals in politics or business or just settle personal scores.” In English, the term is roughly equivalent to “getting the dirt” on someone or “blackmail materials.” In the Russian usage, kompromat could be used for blackmail or it could simply be released to destroy someone’s reputation and career.

One example of the use of kompromat is the 1999 scandal involving Yuri Skuratov. Skuratov, Russia’s top prosecutor, had started an investigation of corruption in the Kremlin when a video showing him in a naked romp with two equally naked young women, neither of which was his wife, was broadcast on Russian television and eventually cost Skuratov his job. NPR notes that the scandal included a press conference by the man who was then head of the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, Vladimir Putin.

This brings us to an English slang phrase: the “honey trap.” If you’ve ever read spy novels, you may be familiar with the term for using an attractive woman of loose morals to compromise a man who is the target of an intelligence agency. The “honey” typically seduces her target while her colleagues gather embarrassing pictures and videos to use for blackmail.

According to the Irish Times, during the Soviet era, most Eastern bloc hotels that catered to foreign travelers were equipped with rooms that were bugged to capture guests in compromising situations. One former Cold War hotel that was operated by Intourist, the Soviet tourism agency, in Estonia has even set up a museum that shows how the KGB spied on guests.

One such guest was Joseph Alsop, an American newspaper columnist who visited Moscow in 1957. Alsop became the victim of a gay honey trap after meeting a man at a party. The man turned out to be a KGB operative. After the pair had sex, the KGB blackmailed Alsop by threatening to release pictures of the act and ruining Alsop’s reputation if he didn’t cooperate by becoming an “agent of influence” for the Soviets. Instead, Alsop told the story to the US Embassy and hastily left the country.

One of the many former Intourist hotels is now the Moscow Ritz Carlton. This is the same hotel that Donald Trump stayed at in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant and where he allegedly met with Russian prostitutes. It is safe to assume that if Mr. Trump engaged in any sexual hijinks while in Moscow that the FSB has photographic record.

With numerous sexual scandals and rumors already released about Donald Trump, it’s impossible to know what the effect of using an embarrassing video to blackmail or discredit him would be. It’s also impossible to say how holding back such a video while releasing Democrat emails would have affected the election.

There are certain to be further revelations in the unfolding scandal of Russia’s interference with the election. Given the close ties of many Trump appointees to Russia, there may be salacious kompromat on other members of new administration as well.

Originally published in The Resurgent

Trump calls for new nuclear arms race

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” is reporting that President-elect Donald Trump has called for a new nuclear arms race. The comment was allegedly made to Mika Brzezinski in a response to a Trump tweet yesterday.

The original tweet from Mr. Trump read, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

In a “Morning Joe” clip, Joe Scarborough says that they asked Mr. Trump for clarification. Brzezinski responds that Trump told her, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass.”

“And outlast them all,” Scarborough adds.

“And outlast them all,” Brzezinski confirms.

“All right, you can put that down as breaking news,” Scarborough quips.

Last month, the Heritage Foundation released a report rating US nuclear forces as “marginal.” Heritage found that US nuclear forces depend on older weapons systems at a time when countries such as Russia and China are upgrading their nuclear forces. Other countries such as North Korea, Iran and India are also building and expanding their nuclear arsenals.

Trump’s original tweet came shortly after a year-end speech by Vladimir Putin in which Putin called upon Russia to “strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems.” The US and NATO have deployed the Aegis Ashore missile defense system to several countries that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc.

Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer during the Cold War, once said that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” Many observers believe that Putin’s foreign policy is aimed at restoring the former satellite countries of the Soviet Union into the orbit of the modern Russian Federation. Diplomatic and economic pressure and military attacks on countries such as Georgia and the Ukraine have furthered this goal.

Throughout the campaign, Donald Trump has been perceived to be a proponent of Putin and Russia. He removed a plank from the Republican Party platform that would have called for lethal military aid to Ukrainians fighting Russia-backed rebel forces. Trump has also signaled a willingness to lift the sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Crimea and possibly even recognize Crimea as part of Russia. Many Trump appointees have strong links to Putin’s Russia.

The hardline response to Russian nuclear sabre rattling may also be linked to the Russian interference in the US election. Trump has been embarrassed by reports that Russia leaked Democratic documents in an attempt to help the Republican win the election. Trump may feel the need to talk tough after Putin’s nuclear comments because the hacking reports made him look weak.

It is too early to tell whether the comments from Trump and Putin will lead to a new arms race and Cold War. It is likely, however, that the Putin’s expansionist aims for Eastern Europe will put the two countries on a collision course that will test President Trump’s foreign policy skill and resolve.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Russian hacking scandal grows

The scandal over Russian interference with the presidential election is growing. Over the weekend, the CIA released its assessment that Russia acted to intentionally aid Donald Trump’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded to the claim with an attack on the CIA.

The New York Times reported on Friday that American intelligence agencies had “high confidence” that Russia acted to harm Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This assessment was based on the finding that the Russians had hacked the Republican National Committee as well as the Democrats, but did not release stolen Republican documents to Wikileaks or other websites.

The report confirms earlier reports from August and September that the Republican Party had been hacked. The Hill reported in August that a number of leaked Republican emails had appeared on DC Leaks, a website connected to the Russian hacking of the Democratic Party. The Republican email trove did not appear to be complete. For example, some of the posted emails were responses to messages that did not appear elsewhere on the site.

President-elect Trump responded by calling the CIA assessment “ridiculous” according to the Wall Street Journal. The Trump camp had previously said, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” implying that the CIA assessment should not be trusted.

Intelligence officials fired back in a statement saying, “It’s concerning that intelligence on Russian actions related to the U.S. election is being dismissed out of hand as false or politically partisan. The inclination to ignore such intelligence and impugn the integrity of U.S. intelligence officials is contrary to all that is sacred to national-security professionals who work day and night to protect this country.”

Trump has continually denied a Russian connection to the hacked Democratic emails both during the campaign and after. This in spite of the fact that Trump publically called on Russia to find and publish Hillary’s deleted emails in July. However, when Vice President-elect Mike Pence was briefed on the alleged Russian involvement in October, Pence said on CNN, “I think there's no question that the evidence continues to point in that direction. There should be severe consequences to Russia or any sovereign nation that is compromising the privacy or the security of the United States of America.”

The evidence that Russia was behind the hacking is not new. The new assessment deals largely with the apparent motives. The CIA and the FBI have not come to the same conclusion that the hacking was done to hurt the Clinton campaign according to CNN. However, both agencies suspected Russian involvement in the hacking as early as July.

Officials who were briefed by both agencies last week said that the FBI responses were “vague” and “ambiguous.” The difference may be partly differences in organizational culture. The CIA takes available evidence and gives an estimate while the FBI has to gather enough evidence to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. The dated nature of the Republican documents that are known to have been stolen is also a factor in the FBI’s failure to totally agree with the CIA assessment that the leaks were intended to help Trump.

Concern about the hacking is bipartisan. Republican senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) joined Democrats Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) to call for a congressional investigation into the hacking. “It's pretty clear to me that WikiLeaks was designed to hurt Clinton and it could be us tomorrow, to my Republican friends,” Graham said to CNN. “What if the Iranians hack into Trump's emails, because they don't like him being tough? As a nation, this is not a partisan issue.”

Fox News noted that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) appear to be backing a congressional investigation as well.

Speaker Paul Ryan stopped short of calling for an investigation, but expressed concern. “Speaker Ryan has said for months that foreign intervention in our elections is unacceptable,” Ryan’s spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, said in a statement to Politico. “The speaker cannot comment on or characterize the content of classified briefings but he rejects any politicization of intelligence matters.”

Many Republicans appear unconcerned about the hacking and view it as an excuse for the Clinton loss or an attempt to delegitimize the Trump Administration. John Bolton, who is reportedly Trump’s pick to be the second-in-command of the State Department, questioned Russia’s involvement on Fox News. Russian propaganda site, RT, framed Bolton’s doubts as an argument that the hacking was a “false flag” by President Obama although Bolton never made that claim.

Although there has so far been no evidence that the Trump campaign was complicit in the DNC hacking, there is concern about Mr. Trump’s cozy relationship with the Kremlin. Trump has appointed numerous Russia-friendly cabinet members and advisors, including Rex Tillerson, who is reportedly Trump’s pick to be Secretary of State, and the administration’s affinity for Putin may affect its policy.

Even before the election, the Trump campaign was instrumental in a pro-Russia change to the Republican platform. Since the Russian invasion of Crimea, the party had called for lethal aid to the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russian-backed militants. That provision was stripped at the request of the Trump campaign. Trump has even considered dropping the sanctions on Russia and recognizing Crimea as Russian territory.

Max Boot points out in USA Today that “Republicans would be sputtering in outrage, and with good reason” if the Russians had released GOP emails to help Hillary Clinton because they saw her as a friendly alternative. That fact is a clue about the right way to handle the intervention that benefitted Trump. Regardless of whether Republicans benefitted, investigators need to pursue the truth about the tampering with America’s election.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Why I voted for Evan McMullin and not Donald Trump

I’m a lifelong conservative who has voted Republican as long as I can remember. Growing up, I watched President Reagan swing Georgia from a state where a Republican couldn’t get elected dogcatcher to a state that was almost totally red. A defining moment of my political life was when I saw President Reagan live at a campaign rally in Atlanta. I started listening to Rush Limbaugh on talk radio in the 1990s and have been writing my conservative Christian blog since 2007.

This makes it all the more surprising for people when they find out that I’m not voting for Donald Trump. In fact, I voted early last week and cast my ballot for Evan McMullin, the independent conservative.

Why I voted for McMullin and why I didn’t vote for Trump are closely intertwined. The bottom line for me is that I don’t believe that either Trump or Hillary should be president. In fact, I don’t believe that either Trump or Hillary should be allowed anywhere near the White House. Not even on a tour group.

People say that if I don’t want Hillary to be president, I should support Donald Trump. The truth is that I oppose Trump for many of the same reasons that I oppose Hillary Clinton. The two candidates are evenly matched in many areas. Trump and Hillary both have deep character flaws. Both are chronic liars. Both are dishonest. Both are corrupt.

I had always said that I would vote Republican as long as the party supported my beliefs and values. Under Donald Trump, it no longer does.

Hillary’s corruption is well known, but when I looked into Trump’s background, I found a seemingly endless list of scandals even before the revelation of his sexual harassment problem. Not paying workers, using eminent domain to take the homes of less wealthy and connected Americans, and openly bragging about bribing elected officials are only the icing on the cake. His unsatisfied clients say Trump was literally a con man who stole tens of thousands of dollars from hardworking real estate investors through Trump University and then allegedly paid off state attorneys general like Pam Bondi in Florida to cover his tracks.

I’ve been told that Trump’s corruption is less damning because he was in the private sector or that the amounts of money involved were less than the Clinton Foundation payoffs. In truth, corruption is a matter of the heart. If Trump would steal from a guy who has to max out his credit card to pay Trump University tuition, why would he not steal from the taxpayers of the United States or use his position to line his own pockets?

If Christian conservatives like me put aside our ethical problems with Trump to defeat Hillary, what have we won? Trump is a New York liberal who, until he started planning to run for president, held traditional liberal views. Even while running as a Republican he has advocated universal government healthcare and raising the minimum wage, supported federal money for Planned Parenthood, and has even adopted Democrat positions on gun control. You would be hard pressed to find any of Donald Trump’s positions which involve shrinking government or making it less powerful. If we elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton, we will only have succeeded in electing a different liberal.

Trump is even worse than Hillary on some issues. Trump bragged that his trade policy was “very similar” to that of Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders. An analysis of Trump’s tariffs and rejection of trade deals found that they would probably cause a recession that might cost as many as 5 million American jobs.

He is no less of an isolationist when it comes to military alliances. He has threatened not to defend NATO allies and called NATO itself “obsolete,” even as Vladimir Putin’s forces carve off pieces of the Ukraine. Trump has said that he is open to proliferation of nuclear weapons and threatened to withdraw American troops from South Korea and Japan where they have stabilized East Asia for the past 60 years.

It was not being too strong that caused the last world war, it was being too deferential to expansionist dictatorships. This is a problem for Trump as well. Trump seems to have a fascination with dictators, but his admiration for Vladimir Putin is particularly troubling, from their bromance last fall to the growing body of evidence that Russia is interfering with the election in a way that benefits Trump. Russia’s investment in Trump may have already paid off. This year’s Republican Party platform dropped a proposal to arm Ukraine against the Russian invaders. The change reportedly came from the Trump campaign. Trump also seems ready to yield America’s role in the Middle East to Russia.

I can find no evidence that Trump is the America-loving conservative that he claims to be. There seems to be no Emmaus road moment that he can point to that led him to change his mind on so many issues. I can find no evidence that he is anything other than an actor playing a role. He is a liberal playing a conservative and occasionally he lapses into his true beliefs or cynically changes positions where he sees a potential benefit.

The character problems, liberal ideology and erratic behavior are red flags that warn about Trump’s lack of judgment. Just as Hillary Clinton’s use of an unapproved private email server and solicitation of donations in exchange for access while Secretary of State are disqualifying, Trump’s many scandals are a warning to voters that he is not to be trusted either.

In fact, almost everything about both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seems to resonate as a warning against making them president. I cannot think of two people that I believe are less equipped to handle presidential authority and responsibility than the Terrible Two.

Some argue that Trump would surround himself with good people who would keep him in line. I think the reverse is true. One need only watch Mike Pence’s debate performance to see the corrupting influence of Trump on the Republican Party. Pence made excuses for Donald Trump and transparently denied that Trump said things that everyone has seen him say on video. What would four years with Trump as leader of the GOP do to the America’s conservative party?

Just when I was considering voting for Gary Johnson as protest or even not voting at all since Johnson showed himself to be a nut, Evan McMullin announced his candidacy.

After watching several interviews of McMullin, I boarded the “Evan Express.” McMullin is essentially a traditional Republican. He is a pro-life, free trade, strong defense, small government conservative. After working for the Republicans in the House of Representatives as a policy advisor, McMullin knows his stuff. He seems to be more knowledgeable than any other candidate, including Hillary Clinton. It is unfortunate that he was not included in the debates.

What really sold me on McMullin was not his policy chops though. What sold me on McMullin was simply the fact that, in a race dominated by two people who are, to use Hillary’s word, deplorable, he was an honest, decent man. He is the sort of person who tries to bring people together, rather than drive wedges between demographics to glom onto a few more votes.

I know that McMullin is a long shot. On the other hand, McMullin’s odds of becoming president are far greater than the odds of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton becoming a president that I can be proud of. Given the choice between sacrificing my beliefs to elect an untrustworthy, liberal Republican who I believe would be a disaster for the country or supporting a candidate that who shares my beliefs, I decided to vote my conscience.

David Thornton is a contributor to The Resurgent

What goes around comes around: Hackers steal Russian emails

Zachary Taylor

In what might seem to some like poetic justice after Russia was implicated in the hack of Democratic National Committee emails, a group of Ukrainian cyber-warriors has released a trove of emails hacked from the account of a top aide to Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The hack appears to be much more serious than the penetration of the DNC because it reaches directly into Putin’s Kremlin offices.

A group calling itself “Cyber Hunta” has so far released more than a gigabyte of emails from Vladislav Surkov. According to “Foreign Policy,” Surkov has been a senior official in the Russian government since 1999 when Putin assumed the presidency after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin. Called the “gray cardinal” of the Kremlin, Surkov has served many key roles for Putin and is believed to been instrumental in Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea.

“This is a serious hack," said Maks Czuperski, head of the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council (DFRL) on NBC News. “We have seen so much happen to the United States, other countries at the hands of Russia. Not so much to Russia. It was only a question of time that some of the anonymous guys like Cyber Hunta would come to strike them back.”

The emails provide a “smoking gun” that confirms that Russia was actually controlling the Ukrainian separatist movement in the forgotten war that has killed 10,000 people. NBC News cites an unnamed U.S. official who said that the emails confirm what U.S. intelligence has long believed, that the Kremlin was “running the separatists at the micro-level.”

One email contains a list of candidates for a local election, some with asterisks indicating they were “checked by us” and “especially recommended.” These candidates were “elected” a few days later. Other emails contain casualty lists, expense reports and a proposal for a propaganda office in the heavily contested city of Donetsk.

Vladislav Surkov was among the Russian officials singled out by the United States and the European Union for individual sanctions for their roles in invasion and annexation of Crimea. At the time Surkov told The Independent that Obama’s action would not affect him since “The only things that interest me in the US are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work. I lose nothing.”

Earlier this month, the Obama Administration said in Politico that it would deliver a “proportional” response against Russia for its alleged role in cyber-attacks against the United States. The U.S. has denied any involvement in the hack of the Surkov emails.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Putin trolls The West

Speaking yesterday at a meeting of former world leaders in Sochi, Russia, Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to ridicule the U.S. election and concerns that Russia threatens Eastern Europe. In a speech translated by The Daily Wire, the president of Russia made light of the notion that Russia was trying to influence the presidential election and called such claims “hysteria.”

“Does anybody seriously believe that Russia could somehow influence the choice that the American people are to make. Do you consider the United States to be some kind of a banana republic?” Putin mocked. “The United States is a great nation. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Putin claimed that concerns about Russian interference in the election were the product of disinformation by the American media. “It is easier for them to try and distract the public with all this talk of Russian spies and hackers and cyber-crime and attempts to influence American politics.” He added that American voters should be more concerned about the national debt and “gun violence” than Russia.

“I wish we had such an efficient, powerful propaganda machine in Russia, but unfortunately we don’t," Putin lamented. "We don’t have the powerful media organizations such as CNN or the BBC. So far, we don’t have those capabilities.”

Over the past few months, evidence has mounted that Russia was behind cyber-attacks and the email hack of Democratic National Committee. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has said that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Russia is interfering with the election. While Donald Trump has not accepted this conclusion, Mike Pence admitted on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “I think there is more and more evidence that implicates Russia and there should be serious consequences.”

Echoing Donald Trump’s concerns about a “rigged” election and that he is a victim of the Washington “establishment,” Putin argued, “People are showing a very different kind of vote, and political parties that used to be considered marginal in the past, being dubbed either far-left or far-right, are now coming to the forefront and actually pushing aside some of the old mainstream parties.” He continued, “When this turned out to be a systemic development, they started claiming that the public just fails to understands its elites and its government, it fails to understand their rationale, and then they started claiming that most often this is a consequence of foreign propaganda; namely Russian propaganda… Average citizens no longer have any confidence in the ruling class.”

Putin did stop short of endorsing either presidential candidate, noting that neither had run a substantive campaign and that their policy differences were slight. “The political agendas have been absolutely devoid of any real meaning. Instead of discussing real issues people start mudslinging, exchanging compromising stories; discussing who pinched whom on what and who sleeps with whom, and that’s just embarrassing. If you look at the political programs of candidates, it looks like they’ve been written based on the same templates. There are hardly any differences you can notice.”

With respect to fears of Russian expansionism in Eastern Europe, Putin ridiculed “military bases close to Russia’s borders” whose purpose was to act as “a defender, a protector of civilization against barbaric hordes.”

“Russia is not going to invade anyone, that would be just laughable, ridiculous,” Putin protested. “But still, they’re trying to beat the war drum and inflate the Russian threat.”

Crimea was not available for comment.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Breitbart worked with liberal activists against Republicans

The conservative website Breitbart has been very critical of reports that a pro-Hillary group paid liberal activists to incite violence at Trump rallies. The reports, based on an undercover video by investigative filmmaker James O’Keefe, were explosive and resulted in the dismissals of at least two Democrat activists from the group Democracy Partners. Now it appears that Breitbart may have used similar tactics to disrupt the campaign events of Trump opponents in the Republican primary.

A report from Politico cites an unnamed source who said that Aaron Black, one of the Democracy Partners activists featured in O’Keefe’s videos, worked with Breitbart during the primary. According to the source, Black, who was also an organizer for Occupy Wall Street, had an informal alliance with Breitbart, “tipping it off about his stunts, exchanging raw video and coordinating coverage” of Black’s antics at events for Republican candidates.

“He [Black] worked directly with Breitbart’s political team on the ground in the primary states to sabotage Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and elect Trump as nominee of [the Republican] party,” the source told Politico. “[Black] was coordinating with [Breitbart’s] top staff to rabble rouse against Rubio at rallies.” The source says that Black was friendly with the Breitbart staff and that contacts were made by phone, email and in person.

In one widely circulated picture, Black, dressed in a silver robot costume, confronted Rubio in a hallway. Video from New Hampshire shows Black and other activists heckling Rubio supporters last February. A Breitbart “exclusive” from February details a physical confrontation between a robot-costumed protester and the chairman of Rubio’s New Hampshire campaign. The Breitbart story identifies the protester as Aaron Black.

Breitbart supported Donald Trump early in the primary and was particularly critical of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. The relationship between the website and the Trump campaign became even more cozy when Paul Manafort was forced to leave the campaign due to his close ties to Vladimir Putin. Trump replaced Manafort, his campaign manager, with Steven Bannon, Breitbart’s chairman.

After the death of founder Andrew Breitbart, Bannon’s leadership turned the website from a respected conservative news source to a transparent, laughable propaganda page. Former Breitbart editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro wrote in the Daily Wire that Bannon “has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda…the facts are undeniable: Breitbart News has become precisely the reverse of what Andrew would have wanted.”

It is unconscionable that a conservative website like Breitbart would work with a radical liberal activist against other conservative Republicans. To condemn Hillary’s campaign for the same tactics that Breitbart used only underscores Steve Bannon’s hypocrisy.

Originally published on The Resurgent.

Republicans were real losers in the second debate

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had their second presidential debate (transcript here) last night. Today the pundits will argue over who landed the most blows and which candidate won. It’s easier to see who lost than it is to determine a winner. The big loser of the night was the Republican Party.

Trump performed much better last night that in his first debate. For the most part, he was able to control himself and was able to land some heavy blows on Hillary Clinton regarding her deleted emails and corruption. The problem with Trump’s performance is that it won’t be enough to save his campaign. It will, however, help stem the tide of defections and retracted endorsements that Trump has suffered since last Friday when his “Access Hollywood” video was released.

An embarrassing performance by Trump might have saved the GOP. But Trump did not deliver an embarrassing performance. Trump was able to hold his own, but did not deliver anything resembling a knockout blow to Hillary Clinton.

In fact, one of the most memorable moments of the night was a line that garnered Trump applause, but may come back to haunt him. Hillary Clinton had just said, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.” Trump’s quick retort was, “Because you’d be in jail.” (Applause.)

While the line will undoubtedly be repeated ad nauseam by Trump supporters, it is less likely that it will score him points with undecided and moderate voters. If a voter is undecided at this point, they are still considering Hillary Clinton as well as Donald Trump. If they are considering Clinton, it’s unlikely that they agree with Trump and the Republican base that Hillary is a criminal. It may backfire on Trump to threaten jailing a candidate that half the country is considering, especially with Trump’s association with Vladimir Putin and other dictators, as well as charges that Trump himself may be a budding authoritarian.

“I didn’t think I’d say this, but I’m going to say it, and I hate to say it,” Trump had said earlier in the night. “But if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception. There has never been anything like it, and we’re going to have a special prosecutor.”

“You’d be in jail” does not seem to indicate a fair investigation or trial. In fact, the comment hearkens back to the numerous presumptions of guilt in open cases that conservatives have criticized President Obama for. “You’d be in jail” is a prejudicial statement that implies President Trump wants a certain outcome and knows in advance what it would be. Trump’s comment made Hillary’s point for her.

The “jail” statement, along with a pre-debate press conference that resurrected Clinton scandals of the past, were celebrated by Trump supporters. Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick all accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and some had also charged that Hillary had also intimidated or threatened them to cover up Bill’s behavior. Kathy Shelton, who had dealt with Hillary as a 12-year-old rape victim, was also at the press conference.

Both the “jail” comment and the press conference are examples of how Trump is playing to his base, rather than to the undecided voters who will decide the election. Such tactics fire up his supporters, but risk turning off undecided voters. Trump overlooks the fact that Hillary’s popularity was at its highest during the Bill Clinton sex scandals of the ‘90s. He risks generating sympathy for her by bringing them up again. Trump also risks the release of more damaging information in response. A producer of “The Apprentice” has already said that “far worse” tapes of Trump exist.

Hillary Clinton also had bad moments. One of the worst was a truly bizarre statement in which she evoked the memory of Abraham Lincoln, “Honest Abe,” in response to a question about duplicity in her public positions and what she had said in private speeches. In the end, there were no huge missteps that would serve to disqualify her among voters who haven’t ruled her out already.

Nothing that Trump or Clinton did makes Trump any more palatable than he was on Saturday to many voters. Trump’s debate performance will not erase his words from the minds of women voters. Dozens of Republicans have already abandoned Trump and called for him to withdraw from the race. The debate will not draw them back, but it may slow future defections.

Rather than the deadlock that we saw last night, an embarrassing performance by Trump would have been more merciful to the GOP. It would have increased the chances that Trump would quit the race and be replaced by an electable candidate. Republicans would not have to choose between their principles and their nominee. Now that won’t happen and the party will continue to be torn apart.

The debate won’t change the trend toward Hillary in the swing states. The Trump tapes might even start shifting Senate races toward the Democrats.

Worst of all for Republicans, the necessity of defending Trump will do lasting damage to the party’s reputation. The party of family values and religious morality has descended to the point where it is making the case that bragging about sexual assault is typical male “locker room talk.” Republicans, many of them professing Christians, excuse Trump because “Bill Clinton did it too.” A promising generation of young conservative leaders will be tainted by their association with and support for Mr. Trump. Many careers, not limited to Mike Pence, will be seriously damaged by the fallout.

The debate won’t save Trump. It will just enable him to take the Republican Party down with him.

Orginally published on The Resurgent