Trump, His National Security Advisor, and the 2024 Vote

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

83% : Because when Trump landed in Tokyo, "Trump joined Abe and Japanese golf pro Hideki Matsuyama at the Kasumigaseki Country Club fort a round of 18 holes, followed by another Trump favorite, a hamburger."In South Korea, however, Trump resurrected his view that the U.S.-South Korea alliance was one-sided.
68% : "McMaster wrote that at the meeting that followed the next day, "Trump was direct.
66% : Trump and PutinTrump met first with Xi at Mar-a-Lago just three months after he became President; I will cover that below.
66% : McMaster wrote he told Trump, "Most of all, he [Xi] wants you to endorse a 'new kind of great power relationship to suggest that you endorse Chinese primacy in Asia.
64% : Subsequent conversations led to a Tillerson trip to Beijing during which Trump assured Xi "of the Trump administration's commitment to the principles of 'no confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect, win-win cooperation,'" according to an editorial in Beijing's English-language China Daily.Arrangements for a two-day summit at Mar-a-Lago followed, where, according to McMaster, the plan was for Trump to oppose Chinese efforts for primacy in the Indo-Pacific, insist on fair economic practices and try to convince Xi that denuclearization of North Korea was in the mutual interest of the U.S and China.
60% : "After a tour of the Forbidden City, a welcoming ceremony overlooking Tiananmen Square, and a military parade, Trump and his team entered the Great Hall of the People for the first restricted bilateral discussion.
59% : McMaster writes that on his first day on the job, February 22, 2017, as he walked toward the Oval Office to attend his first President's Daily [intelligence] Briefing, Mike Pompeo, then CIA Director, "highlighted two aspects of Trump's worldview that were problematic: he undervalued alliances, and he tended toward moral equivalency when discussing threats from authoritarian hostile powers."With Trump running again for re-election and the race being close - and those two anecdotes fresh in my mind -- I decided to share some examples from McMaster's book when Trump as President was dealing with other leaders, specifically Putin and China's Xi Jinping, since it's possible he could soon be President again, and in that role a second time.
59% : "However, after McMaster briefed Trump on the next day's activities that included travel to Hanoi and a state banquet with North Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, McMaster wrote that Trump asked, "Why do I have to do this?
55% : A year later, on July 16, 2018, Trump had a second private, two-hour meeting with Putin in Helsinki.
54% : "McMaster made clear the Asia trip was the beginning of the end for his time serving Trump.
53% : After Trump and Xi held an initial one-on-one conversation, Trump was briefed on the Syria situation in a secure room and agreed to the military strike while standing in a Mar-a-Lago men's room, according to McMaster.
52% : "The first stop was Japan and meeting with then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whom McMaster described as "the world leader most adept at forging a positive relationship with Trump."
51% : McMaster wrote that Brooks was further "surprised when Trump stated that the agreement [for the Seoul government to pay the salaries of 8,600 Korean nationals to support Camp Humphrey] should be the equivalent of a cost-plus contract with the South Koreans reimbursing all U.S. costs plus a profit margin.
50% : "Trump had ignored prepared talking points on Xi's complaints and, McMaster wrote, "gave the impression of U.S. ambivalence over countering the People's Liberation Army aggression across the region.
46% : In a discussion about Afghanistan, McMaster described how Trump had always wanted to get the U.S. out of that country because "an unnamed 'friend who is a real military expert' had said that a Taliban victory was inevitable because 'Afghans are the toughest fighters.'
45% : I suggested that Putin was confident he could 'play' Trump and get what he wanted - sanctions relief and the United States out of Syria and Afghanistan on the cheap - by manipulating Trump with ambiguous promises of a 'better relationship.'
45% : Indicating this second meeting had been preset, McMaster wrote that at the post-dinner meeting, "Putin handed Trump a list of ideas for collaboration including development of an amusement park near Moscow.
45% : "As has been publicized, after receiving a note that the U.S. attack on a Syrian base had been successful, Trump told President Xi about the strike as chocolate cake was served.
45% : As Trump began to speak, McMaster wrote, "I experienced a wave of apprehension that caused a sinking feeling in my stomach.
44% : McMaster wrote that "profilers and psychological operational officers at Russia's intelligence services must have been working overtime," preparing Putin to meet Trump.
43% : McMaster wrote that in 2017, he had spoken to Trump "several times" before arriving in Hamburg about what Putin hoped to get out of their meeting, including relief from U.S. economic sanctions; Washington's abandonment of Ukraine; removal of U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan; and a discrediting of the U.S. intelligence community and its so-called "Russiagate" findings.
41% : At the conclusion of the subsequent opening night dinner, McMaster writes that Trump approached Putin, who had been seated next to Melania Trump, and the two presidents spoke through Russia's translator, since each country had only one translator at the dinner.
41% : It's never been clear what happened during that Helsinki one-on-one conversation, but at the subsequent press conference Trump accepted Putin's denial of interference in the 2016 election, despite the U.S intelligence community's finding that Moscow had intervened in the vote.."I think we need a readout on if there was any [private] agreement," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters after the 2018 Helsinki press conference.
41% : "Doing as Xi pleasedXi, like other leaders, had been studying Trump to determine how to manipulate him into statements and actions to advance the Chinese leader's own agenda.
40% : "McMaster wrote, "Unsurprisingly, he [Putin] claimed [to Trump] that Ukraine had been a part of Russia since the sixteenth century, that he had to protect Russian speakers in the east from Ukraine's campaign of ethnic cleansing.
37% : A question of expertiseTwo additional thoughts that McMaster portrayed early in his book have stuck with me as symbolic as any in gaining an understanding of Trump, and perhaps his greatest weaknesses.
36% : However, McMaster wrote, "Xi remained customarily stone-faced in formal meetings, but his expression shifted, and I thought Trump may have been getting through."
35% : At the dinner that followed, Trump asked Xi to provide the history of China he had given during their earlier one-on-one conversation, which McMaster in his book described as heavy on China's "century of humiliation," and omitted "the great traumas and horrors that the Communist Party inflicted on the Chinese people.
33% : Another private meetingThat post-dinner hour was not the only time Trump conversed with Putin with no other U.S. participant present.
32% : At one point, Trump asked Gen. Vince Brooks, commander U.S. Forces Korea, why South Korea, which had paid $9.8 billion, had not paid 100 percent of the $10.8 billion cost of Camp Humphrey, a new base for American forces in Korea?
31% : If the President was willing to dismiss American concerns in public, what in the heck did he say in private?"Trump and XiTrump's first exposure to Chinese President Xi took place on April 6, 2017.
30% : Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, Trump offered to mediate on the Senkakus, implying that China had a legitimate claim to be adjudicated.
30% : "McMaster concluded that "Trump found it difficult to distinguish between those who brought him sound analysis and those, real or imagined, who brought him hackneyed bromides.
27% : Trump had also taken a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during the transition, and said the U.S. might not adhere to the longstanding American "One China" policy.
23% : "To appeal to Trump's optimistic interpretation of U.S.-Soviet WWII alliance," McMaster wrote, "Putin showed Trump a video of Russia's Northern Fleet salvaging the USS Thomas Donaldson to keep alive the pipe dream of conciliation with Putin's Kremlin.
22% : OPINION -- ."I told Trump how Putin had duped Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
22% : Beyond offering a 'cyber working group,' Putin gave Trump 'his word' that he had never looked at any of the classified information that Edward Snowden had stolen and given to Wikileaks.
21% : But Tillerson did not say whether Trump accepted that assertion.
20% : "Early in the book, McMaster describes Trump as "unconventional and impulsive.
20% : In a later press conference, Tillerson said Trump had raised Russian involvement in the 2016 election, but that "President Putin denied such involvement."
19% : McMaster, a three-star Army general with 33 years in service, held the White House job for 13 months before he was fired by Trump after, as he put it, "my relationship with him had become fraught.
17% : During the 2016 campaign, Trump had accused China of unfair trade policies, criticized its island-building in the South China Sea, and accused Beijing of doing too little to constrain North Korea's nuclear bomb efforts.
15% : At their final prep in Hamburg, McMaster wrote that Trump "was getting impatient with my 'negative vibe.'
12% : Rather, Tillerson said Trump decided to move on because Russia would not admit blame.Trump later took possession of his interpreter's notes from the 2017 Putin meeting, and instructed her not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials.
6% : "The Trump White House at first claimed it was just a brief conversation at the end of dinner, and later Trump tweeted, "Fake News story of secret dinner with Putin is 'sick.'

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