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March 28, 2024

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Trump said that this first summit with the Russian president was not just a stand-alone event, but the beginning of a longer process with the need for stronger dialogue with Russia.
The two leaders have previously had talks at larger multilateral meetings, but the Helsinki Summit was the first such personal encounter, behind closed doors with only their translators in attendance. The meeting rounded off Trump’s overall European tour.
Those of you who know and understand diplomacy, national security, and the intricacies of foreign policy process have figured out that the story was already written before Trump arrived in Helsinki. Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein’s indictments of Russians as having hacked the election came out only days before President departed for Helsinki. As part of the Democrat Party, the political-left and the mainstream media working in concert, warnings by them suggested and postulated that President Trump could not survive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Using its vast media coordination and dissemination process, the false stories spread and planted all over the news and social media outlets.
Further, Leftist-wing media pundits followed suit and used its role to play-up the false narrative that Putin may have something to hold over Trump’s head making him susceptible to manipulation. More specifically, that narrative was instigated by former CIA Director John Brennan, a quite despicable man who served under former President Barrack Obama. The Democrats and their colleagues’ strategy ensured that preparations were made so that once President Trump came out from meeting with Putin to announce that Russia had indeed hacked the election they would make the pronouncement that Trump admits Mueller’s investigation is legitimate, thereby making his presidency illegitimate. The day came on Monday, when President Trump side-stepped easily around their diabolical trap as he instead blasted them for not investigating Hillary Clinton, or believing and accepting the Electoral College results.
Hoodwinked once again, a standard practice of Donald Trump, caused all of them — Democrat Party, the political-left, and the mainstream media to throw another now, ever so typical Democrat-style tantrum and blow themselves to bits screaming; “TRAITOR” in their most maniacal, hysterical ways. In fact, as noted on the Laura Ingraham show Wednesday night, it became increasingly obvious that each tried to outdo the other in their descriptions of ‘Trump’s thwarting of their plans’ describing his actions as a betrayal of the United States intelligence agencies, a betrayal of the presidency, and even more destructive to America than the 9-11 attacks, Pearl Harbor, and the Holocaust combined! The nuclear-scale of their condemnations over a simple meeting made for some entertaining viewing as Democrat’s did a complete meltdown in public.
Those of us who understand the extent of the process for such an event as the Helsinki meeting, understand the magnitude of what the agenda is and the planned outcome is and the impact expected. Everything that was done in Helsinki was planned, implemented, and orchestrated by the most senior Trump administration officials. The predominant players included; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and Fiona Hill, the NSC’s Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian Affairs the most prominent expert on Russia, and State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia (Russia), Wes Mitchell.  All of them together, set the agenda, the planning, and attended and participated in the all-important and in fact, critical Bi-lateral meetings, prior to the primary meeting between Putin and Trump, while they met. President Trump as a businessman and the practitioner of strategic importance and the role of heads of states. President Trump sees his primary role as the principle face and representative of the United States.
Likewise, first and foremost the critical challenge was to get to know Putin, period! Furthermore, and also of critical importance, is that Trump likes to do that – he sees it as necessary and critical to accomplish a very robust agenda, in order to complete requirements, treaties and policies.
Part of diplomatic planning is the fact that the President of the United States in his role as head of state is that he has to meet with world leaders. That’s a given, regardless who they are. Sometimes that includes tough, unscrupulous, and not necessarily pleasant world leaders.
In some cases, as the result timing, less than favorable situations or other diplomatic irregularities visits can be avoided. In the case of Russia, it was necessary. Also as necessary, it must be spelled out that because of the current status of diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia, a careful, strategized plan and format for the Helsinki was necessary. Actions, mannerisms and diplomatic protocols needed to be considered. In the end, the strategic plan for the meeting between President’s Trump and Putin was implemented. As the senior diplomat President Trump, though unseen to the world, Trump chided and was tough on Putin in the nearly two-hour private meeting Again, with regard to that, the joint press conference where Trump and Putin shared the stage — that was not the place.
It should be remembered Russia is a major nation on the world stage with more nuclear weapons that the United States with major influence in the world, President Trump still has to get things done on numerous fronts, for obvious multiple reasons. In a myriad number of cases and situation, we as a superpower must deal with Putin on critical international and bilateral issues such as; arms control, Syria, Iran, the renegotiation and renewal of the upcoming START Agreement (that Obama sold us out on) and other important defense, economic and diplomatic issues. These issues will not happen if the President had taken the gloves off publically and embossed Putin publically. For those who think otherwise, their shortfall is they don’t understand or take into consideration the intricacies of the required and expected diplomatic protocols, mannerisms, and necessary and accepted behavior of ‘head of state diplomacy’. For the anti-Trump Democrat Party, the political-left, and the mainstream media – they would forever find an excuse or reason to attack the President…nothing new here. Again remember, this was the President’s first official visit with Putin. It was necessary, it was a key and pivotal and President Trump accomplished it extremely well.
In fact, America’s number one talk radio host Rush Limbaugh astutely pointed out and cut right through the maniacal screaming and shrill insanity of the Democrats, the political-leftists, and mainstream media who relentlessly tried to demonize President Trump. Rush notes that the amusement of Trump and Putin throwing the left’s ridiculous collusion narrative back in their faces was worth the price of admission watching their presser. Having Trump and Putin stand as statesmen rather than pawns to the press and pissing on their parade, and then watching the Democrats, the political-leftists, and mainstream media go insane was priceless! Certainly President Trump and his senior policy team’s role in ensuring this happened as it did was genius. And yes, they did master and orchestrate the agenda and visuals by setting the stage for the PR value.
As is always expected, the political-leftist Progressive Democrats always conflate the facts and truth with the false narratives, deception and the now so-called fake news. This is their new standard operating procedure of which they continue to double and triple down. Their claim that Russian hacking got Trump elected holds as much basis in truth as their claim that man’s CO2 pollution causes global warming and climate change, or that CFA’s created a hole in the ozone and destroying Freon Corp. healed it, or that socialism taxing away wealth will make poor people prosperous. One has nothing to do with the other except that they coexist in liberal’s dysfunctional and delusional minds. All of their ridicule, lies, and condemnations of President Trump as a Putin puppet fall flat in the shadow of his strengthening of NATO and dressing down of Britain and Germany for their acts weakening the alliance.
This in and of itself all ties back to their hypocrisy and the political-lefts and mainstream media’s never-ending belief of the Democrat’s hysterical and insane reaction to the fact that Donald Trump won over Hillary Clinton. When they soon realized the facts, they realized they needed to create an excuse and a cover story. So they reinvented their already in-play operation to take down candidate Donald Trump and resurrected it with the new false-narrative that Trump and his team colluded with Russia and Putin to affect the election results to cause Clinton to lose.
Of course, the truth to that narrative is that the former Soviet Union and now Russia has been attempting to manipulate U.S. elections for decades. And while that has been know and has been the case, it was former President Obama who did absolutely nothing to even attempt to use power and will of the Intelligence Community and the FBI to investigate and stop Russia’s effort. In fact, it the evidence wholly supports the likelihood that collusion was on the other shoe – that of the Democrats, the Clinton campaign, and the Obama administration. At a minimum, Obama and his indignant and integrity-less cohorts were in fact true enablers to Russia election interference doings. And since I mentioned Hillary Clinton, let me briefly address her role.
Certainly no one in the Deep State is going to go after Hillary’s ill-gotten fortune or investigate her ties to Russia that Democrats and their party have enjoyed for a century. No one in the Intelligence Community that still works for Obama’s Organization for Action army against America is going to lift a finger to stop the continued lies coming out of their offices. Brennan, a closet Communist who voted for Communists and converted to Islam under Obama as head of the CIA, and liberals who elected Obama chosen to manage and oversee the nation’s decline when the nation has been at war with Islam and socialism for decades, are the true turncoats and America haters. Now there effort being front and center bases on the evidence want their role to be brushed aside. As Fox News Contributor Judith Miller said, “…its not what Obama did or didn’t do, that’s ancient history.” These people are the major instigators of the ongoing anti-Trump effort and they are steadfast in keeping that going. This includes continue to blame Trump for Russian interference in the 2016 Election, delegitimize his election and Presidency, and to do so by taking every effort to lie and cloud and confuse the American people of President Trump’s accomplishment and successes.
President Trump said Wednesday he got on well with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their summit and emphasized that “big results will come.”
Trump noted on Twitter that “So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki. Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!”
Certainly, while the NATO meeting in Brussels was an acknowledged triumph, with billions of dollars more being put up by member countries at a faster pace, the President was touting that the meeting with Russia would prove to be, in the long run, an even greater success. Further Tweeting, “Many positive things will come out of that meeting.” Trump hailed last week’s NATO summit in Europe as victory for his tough stance of demanding the United States’ European allies make big new defense spending pledges.
Before his arrival in Helsinki, Trump said, they would be having discussions on everything from trade to military, to missiles, to nuclear, Syria to China, North Korea, and some discussion about China.
Likewise, there were numerous key strategic successes in Helsinki that most are unaware of because the mainstream media has intentionally refuse to cover them, thus voiding the American people and the world about what occurred. They have failed, albeit deliberately, to address the fact that Trump was able to get Putin to renegotiate START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) which prior to the summit might have expired. Additionally, Trump was able to convince Putin to reveal intelligence and negotiate for pro-Iranian militias in Syria to withdraw from areas near Israel’s border, avoiding a dangerous precedent and potential conflict. They also agreed to work together to address the bitter conflict in Syria and help with humanitarian concerns. On Ukraine, the President Trump argued “that Moscow’s annexation of Crimea was illegal” which supports our policy as the standard NATO position — a fact that Putin unsurprisingly disputed. Related to the issue of nuclear arms control is the agreement, established in 2005, to work together to bring the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) up to date and boost the existing mechanisms for detecting and stopping illicit nuclear activity across the globe. Also, because Russia’s border with North Korea, Trump was able to convince Putin to assist and as a result, Russia has agreed to help in delicate negotiations with North Korea.
Similarly, to the President’s most ardent defenders in the Conservative House Freedom Caucus, the biggest problem with Trump’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin was the press — mainstream media. The Freedom Caucus, indicated that given the unfriendliness of the press to the President, why should we concentrate on the press conference, said Tuesday. Noting that the summit in fact had the two world superpowers sit down and discuss in a civilized way for two hours privately, then two hours with staff, the wide gamut of issues that are important to this world, that is a success. It was a successful summit.
As previously, noted President Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki was his first time sharing the international stage with a man he has described as an important U.S. competitor. Standing alongside Putin, Trump steered clear of any confrontation with the Russian, going so far as to question U.S. intelligence and last week’s federal indictments that accused 12 Russians of hacking into Democratic Party emails. Again, this all tracks back to Obama administration. Trump asserted that there are some people who would rather go to war than see the U.S. get along with Russia. At the same time President Trump said that he told Putin during their summit in Helsinki that the U.S. would not tolerate meddling in U.S. elections. Trump stated, “I let him know we can’t have this, we’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be.” Asked if he held Putin personally responsible for interference in the November 2016 presidential vote, Trump replied: “Well, I would, because he’s in charge of the country, just like I consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country” … that he had been “very strong on the fact that we can’t have meddling, we can’t have any of that.”
One thing that must be remembered, had this been a meeting between Putin and Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, the political-leftists, and mainstream media would once again be going insane and gleefully describing the “Helsinki Reset II Summit” as a priceless resounding success. But we must consider President Trump, the superb strategist, primarily based on his business career and the success within his first eighteen plus months in office.
President Trump’s actions at the Helsinki summit, with Putin, had nothing to do with immigration, but his performance there suggests a style of operating that puts the administration’s recent actions on border security into context. While Trump’s statements in Helsinki have prompted howls of disdain from across the political spectrum, when he suggested and then unsuggested that the Russians may not have been involved in meddling in the 2016 presidential elections. I for one believe this was part of his strategy and optics. That said, the President Trump appeared to have defended and advanced America’s key positions in the summit itself, as I previously point out on the SALT Treaty, NPA, Syria, Iran, North Korea and China.
Likewise, as previously reported, in December 2017 that the Trump administration had approved the largest U.S. commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. Criticism of the sale of the Javelin missile system to Ukraine was a concern by Democrats that despite the fact that the sale was in the U.S. and the Ukraine’s best interest and that it stopped Russia’s further ambitions in that country, they were concerned that sale might complicate President Trump’s stated ambition to work with Putin. Similarly, they criticized Trump’s deployment of U.S. troops to train in joint military exercises with the Ukrainian army inside that country earlier this month. In both cases, Trump’s decision was strategic and effective and had no impact on the summit. In fact, let Putin know Trump is serious.
With that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has stated that “Trump’s ‘eagerness’ to ‘sell out’ the United States shows that the Russian government must ‘have something’ on Trump.” If that’s the case, President Trump, however, has a funny way of “selling out” the United States to Putin.
Furthermore, forgotten in the controversy over the Helsinki press conference was the fact that President Trump had earlier been criticized for castigating the German government at the NATO summit, complaining that the country is “captive” to Russia as result of its dependence on Russian energy. The political-left’s concern is that Germany approved and started building what’s known as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline this year, with plans to complete the construction by 2020. While they this will help Germany import tons of Russian gas to power the country’s homes, industries, and military.
What worries Trump, is that this Russia-to-Germany pipeline is being built by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. That could potentially give Moscow major influence over Berlin, especially since Germany imports nearly 70 percent of its energy from Russia thus making Germany somehow be beholden to Moscow. Further, Trump also noted that Germany’s former leader, Gerhard Schroeder, works in the Russian energy industry. Schroeder is a close friend of Vladimir Putin and even hails him as a “flawless democrat.” Another reason why, Trump thinks this is a bad deal, to say the least.
Aside from Germany and the rest of Western Europe, there is concern by military and energy experts that the pipeline will have deleterious effects on Ukraine, which detailed analysis indicates as follows:

  • No country is more angry about the pipeline than Ukraine, a U.S. ally.
  • Ukraine stands to lose billions of much needed dollars if Russia can transfer its gas transmissions to Europe running across Ukrainian territory.
  • Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, said: “This is not a commercial project — it is not economical or profitable — it is absolutely a political project.
  • Simply put, Trump’s criticism and concern of Germany’s ties to Russia only makes sense if Russia is a bad actor. If the President Trump were a blackmail target or a Russian stooge, he likely did not make his Russian controllers happy with his statements about Nord Stream 2.

Although there were strong calls for the President Trump to confront Putin on Russian meddling in the elections at that press conference, it is not clear what benefit would have been gained from such an action, except to appease an American audience. My first reaction and concern as a former Senior Intelligence officer is with former KGB officers like Putin who never admit their culpability for anything, even if caught in the act. A direct confrontation like that wanted by the Democrats, the political-leftists, and mainstream media, as well as Establishment Republicans and the NeverTrumpers, could have scuttled whatever progress the two had reached at the summit itself.
Finally, I believe it was both strategically diplomatic and tactically prudent for President Trump to believe that it was better to wait until he got back to the United States to “clarify” his remarks for the folks back home.
U.S. national security and indeed, international security are dependent on the leaders of these two powerful nations developing cooperative relations. The ability of U.S. and Russian leaders to work together plays a key role in preventing another world war. It would have been a dereliction of duty if Trump had not met with Putin.
For the Democrats and the rest of their ilk, the very notion that a U.S. president had committed treason by seeking cooperation with the Russian President is both absurd and despicable. Given the stakes of the two leaders’ relationship, it is also extremely dangerous. Any American who even considers the thought should be ashamed. Further, the ridiculous statements accusing Trump of treason and calling for the military to overthrow him are terrifying. They demonstrate that Trump’s opponents are so obsessed with delegitimizing his presidency, and the subsequent likelihood of impeaching him, that they are willing to risk a world war to achieve their domestic political goals and socialist ones at that!
Finally, when we consider the insanity of the hysteria of Trump’s critics on one hand, and President Trump’s extraordinary accomplishments in Helsinki on the other — we need to be thankful that our President was willing, as he said, “to take a political risk in pursuit of peace,” rather than “risk peace in pursuit of politics.” The U.S. and the world are beholden and have benefited greatly from his courage — God bless President Trump for being the absolute genius and superbly brilliant strategist that he is.

  • Col. Jim Waurishuk

    Jim Waurishuk is a retired USAF Colonel, serving nearly 30-years as a career senior intelligence and political-military affairs officer and special mission intelligence officer with expertise in strategic intelligence, international strategic studies and policy, and asymmetric warfare. He served as a special mission intelligence officer assigned to multiple Joint Special Operations units and with the CIA’s Asymmetric Warfare Task Force and international and foreign advisory positions. He served as Deputy Director for Intelligence for U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) during the peak years of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Global War on Terrorism. Waurishuk is a former White House National Security Council staffer and a former Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council, Washington, D.C. He served as a senior advisor to the Commander U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and served as Vice President of the Special Ops-OPSEC. Currently, he is the Chairman of the Hillsborough County (FL) Republican Executive Committee and Party and serves on the Executive Board of the Republican Party of Florida.

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