Just after Rex Tillerson wrapped up his off-camera, delayed-audio press conference following the Trump-Putin love fest summit, David Gergen was given an opportunity to opine about what happened during the meeting.
In Gergen's opinion, Trump "seemed presidential" and so everything was good with the world and with the meeting, because in Gergen's world we merely need to feel like it's all normal for it to BE normal.
In fact, it is not normal at all, nor did Trump "seem presidential." As Tillerson explains in the video below, Trump and Putin did discuss Russian interference in the election, but agreed they couldn't actually agree on anything and so decided to pay some lip service to it before moving on to other more interesting topics like joint ventures, oil, and real estate deals. Okay, Tillerson didn't mention the ventures or deals, but you know that's where the conversation went, right?
With regard to interference in the election I think the president took note of actions that had been discussed by the Congress, most recently additional sanctions that have been voted out of the Senate to make it clear as to the seriousness of the issue.
But I think what the two presidents, I think, rightly focused on is, how do we move forward?
This account uses different words, but squares with what the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov reported out from the meeting.
I mean, one way to "move forward" is to minimize the whole thing and create a sham "commission" to figure out ways to coordinate in the future, right?
Tillerson continues:
How do we move forward from here? Because it's not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed upon resolution of that question between the two nations. So the question is, what do we do now? And I think the relationship, and the president made this clear as well, it's too important. And it's too important to not find a way to move forward.
Not dismissing the issue in any way, and that is why we've agreed to continue engagement and discussion around how do we secure a commitment that the Russian government has no intention of and will not interfere in our affairs in the future nor in the affairs of others, and how do we create a framework in which we have some capability to judge what is happening in the cyber world and who to hold accountable, and this is obviously an issue that's broader than just U.S./Russia, but it certainly, we see the manifestation of that threat in the events of last year so I think, again, the president's rightly focused on how do we move forward.
Tillerson used a lot of words to essentially confirm that Trump dismissed the concerns over Russian interference.
My retort to David Gergen? Appearances mean nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. NOTHING. By letting bygones be bygones, our President is now actively and openly colluding with Russia to undermine future elections.
Trump was not presidential at all. He should never have granted Putin two hours of discussion time, nor should he have let Putin off the hook for interfering in our election.
Unless, of course, he'd like for Putin to do it again.
Oh, that's the ticket!
