Trump and Putin at the APEC dinner in Vietnam on November 10th.
By Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images.
On Saturday, Donald Trump told a press pool onboard Air Force One he has not only discussed the possibility of Russia meddling in 2016 with Vladimir Putin, but also that he believed
Putin when the Russian president told Trump the Kremlin had nothing to
do with the election. His statement was troubling, all the more so since
multiple U.S. intelligence groups—including the C.I.A. and F.B.I.—agree
that Russia probably did influence the outcome of the election. Now two
former directors of national intelligence groups say that Putin is
“playing” Trump for a fool by appealing to the American president’s ego.
“By
not confronting the issue directly and not acknowledging to Putin that
we know you’re responsible for this, I think he’s giving Putin a pass,”
former C.I.A. director John Brennan told C.N.N.’s State of the Union on Sunday, via The Washington Post.
“I think it demonstrates to Mr. Putin that Donald Trump can be played
by foreign leaders who are going to appeal to his ego and try to play
upon his insecurities, which is very, very worrisome from a national
security standpoint.”
Putin’s press secretary
denies that Putin and Trump had ever discussed Russia’s involvement in
the election, but the two have met, and seemed friendly, a few times. In
his defense of the Russian president, Trump indicated that it would be
better for the U.S. and Russia to have a good relationship, because the
Kremlin could help the U.S. with North Korea—a problem many believe
Trump himself is exacerbating with his insulting tweets directed at Kim Jong Un.
Former national intelligence director James R. Clapper,
while appearing on the same C.N.N. segment, agreed with Brennan about
Trump. “He seems very susceptible to rolling out the red carpet and
honor guards and all the trappings and pomp and circumstance that come
with the office, and I think that appeals to him, and I think it plays
to his insecurities,” Clapper said.
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“I don’t know why the
ambiguity about this,” Brennan said. “Putin is committed to undermining
our system, our democracy and our whole process. And to try paint it in
any other way is, I think, astounding, and, in fact, poses a peril to
this country.”
During a Sunday news conference in Hanoi with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang,
Trump seemed to step back a little from his earlier statements: “What I
said is that I believe [Putin] believes that,” he said.
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