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Trump Dictatorship and All Things Politics


Donald Trump had been the president-elect for just two days when he reportedly spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Nov. 7.

On the call, Trump advised the Russian president not to escalate the war with Ukraine and reminded him of the U.S.’s military presence in Europe, according to an account first published by The Washington Post, which cited multiple sources familiar with the conversation.

The Kremlin, however, denied that meeting had ever taken place. “Pure fiction,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted.

Normally, the U.S. would be able to document that the call had happened. But not this time.
That's because the State Department, which traditionally helps coordinate phone calls between incoming presidents and world leaders, has been shut out of Trump’s calls with foreign dignitaries.

That means the conversations were not held over secure phone lines, no State Department staff were available to offer guidance on the nuances on foreign policy and no official interpreters were on hand to overcome language barriers that can sometimes lead to confusion or misunderstandings about exactly what was said.

For U.S. foreign policy analysts, Trump’s calls with Putin and other world leaders after his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election are cause for alarm.

“We’re entering a dangerous territory of telephone games, where Trump is going to have private chats with foreign leaders, and they're going to tell their teams one thing, and Trump is going to tell our national security team another,” said Brett Bruen, a former diplomat.

Different interpretations of private conversations stemming from translation difficulties or misunderstandings could not only sow confusion, Bruen said, but could trigger an international crisis.

trump doesn't want anyone involved in these calls because its much harder to do things like blackmail and bribe foreign leaders. A phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019 deepened Trump’s distrust of government employees. During the call, Trump threatened to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine unless Zelenskyy investigated then-former Vice President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. A summary of the conversation, made public by Trump's Justice Department and prepared by a government aide who had been permitted to listen to the call, helped lead to Trump’s first impeachment.

Trump’s remarks to Putin that he should not escalate the war with Ukraine raised eyebrows because federal law makes it a crime for an unauthorized American citizen to negotiate a dispute between the United States and a foreign government.

“There can only be one foreign policy at a time,” Bruen said. “What Trump is doing is saying you need to do X or Y, even though he hasn’t been sworn in, even though he doesn’t control U.S. foreign policy right now.”

Russia’s denial that the call ever took place also shows why it’s problematic for Trump to hold private conversations with foreign leaders without the involvement of the State Department, its official interpreters or other support staff, said Fried, who worked under Democratic and Republican administrations and is now a fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“Somebody’s not telling the truth,” he said. “If the Trump people had used the State Department, the Kremlin wouldn’t be able to get away with denying that the call took place, or at least there’d be no doubt.”

Fried said private calls with foreign dignitaries are not always held over secure phone lines because some leaders may not have such lines at their disposal. Still, phone conversations over unsecured lines are risky.

“Most of our adversaries are able to tap into these calls, which in and of itself is concerning because it means that the Russians are spying on the calls he’s having with Europe and the Middle East, and the Chinese are accessing the same ones,” Bruen said. “These are sensitive discussions. They allow countries’ leaders to understand where there may be potential compromises or vulnerabilities.”

When Zelenskyy called Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to congratulate him on his victory, Trump handed the phone over to Elon Musk, the billionaire business titan who has become one his advisers and a ubiquitous presence at his side. Musk, a government contractor, has provided communications services to Ukraine through his Starlink satellite network during its war with Russia.

Musk also met on Nov. 11 with Iran's ambassador to the United States in an effort to help diffuse tensions between the two countries, according to multiple reports. Iran later denied that the meeting had taken place.

Allowing Musk to participate in a private call with Zelenskyy is alarming, Bruen said, because “Musk does not have a government role. He doesn’t have a security clearance. He does have a whole of lot of interest in the outcome of what is happening in Ukraine” because of his business interests there.

Worries about Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders are compounded by questions of how he has handled classified documents in the past, Bruen said.

Trump suggested his Democratic opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, should be jailed and disqualified from holding office amid questions about how she handled classified information. Seven years later, after he left office, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted Trump on 40 counts of mishandling classified documents, some of which were stored in a bathroom in Mar-a-Lago.

Given Trump’s past, his unsupervised phone calls with foreign leaders should set off alarms, Bruen said.

“It’s a hot mess,” he said.
 
Al-O-Meter said:
You don't need to sell me on Trump. He already had my vote.
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I agree. Calls between foreign leaders and POTUS do not need to be on secure lines. Let's just connect a 5-way calls with the Chinese, Iranians, Russians, and Syrians, because we know they are listening.

We're so effed with this bozo in charge.
 
silesian said:
I agree. Calls between foreign leaders and POTUS do not need to be on secure lines. Let's just connect a 5-way calls with the Chinese, Iranians, Russians, and Syrians, because we know they are listening.

We're so effed with this bozo in charge.
Click to expand...
I can totally picture putin calling trump and saying "remember when we helped you out with your problems decades ago? (watch Active Measures) Well, now its time to pay up. Time to make America bleed" and trump is like "Dont worry, i will come through for you in the next 4 years. Just make sure there is a place for me at your table in Russia afterwards"

trump definitely wouldn't want a convo like that being heard by the US State Department.
 
fishonjazz said:
I can totally picture putin calling trump and saying "remember when we helped you out with your problems decades ago? (watch Active Measures) Well, now its time to pay up. Time to make America bleed" and trump is like "Dont worry, i will come through for you in the next 4 years. Just make sure there is a place for me at your table in Russia afterwards"

trump definitely wouldn't want a convo like that being heard by the US State Department.
Click to expand...
Tinfoil hats are coming out again. Crazy conspiracy theorists making **** up. Cuckoo birds.
 

When President-elect Donald Trump said Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would recommend major cuts to the federal government in his administration, many public employees knew that their jobs could be on the line.

Now they have a new fear: becoming the personal targets of the world’s richest man – and his legions of followers.

Musk reposted two X posts that revealed the names and titles of people holding four relatively obscure climate-related government positions. Each post has been viewed tens of millions of times, and the individuals named have been subjected to a barrage of negative attention. At least one of the four women named has deleted her social media accounts.

“These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees. “It’s intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.”

This isn’t new behavior for Musk, who has often singled out individuals who he claims have made mistakes or stand in his way. One former federal employee, previously targeted by Musk, said she experienced something very similar.

“It’s his way of intimidating people to either quit or also send a signal to all the other agencies that ‘you’re next’,” said Mary “Missy” Cummings, an engineering and computer science professor at George Mason University, who drew Musk’s ire because of her criticisms of Tesla when she was at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Musk has done this kind of thing before – and it’s led to real danger for the people named.

Missy Cummings angered Musk when she was appointed a senior advisor at the NHTSA because her research and public comments were critical of Tesla’s driver-assist programs and she had called for regulating the systems.

Musk targeted Cummings on what was then called Twitter, and his legions of fans followed.

In an interview, Cummings said she received a torrent of attacks, including death threats, and had to temporarily relocate before she eventually moved.

CNN reached out to multiple experts and academics who specialize in cyber harassment, doxing and online abuse. But several declined to comment on the record for fear of themselves becoming Musk’s targets.

“What has happened has an incredible and horrific chilling effect,” one of them said.

Another said they are “not surprised” with Musk’s re-posts, adding they are an example of a “classic pattern” of cyber harassment.
 
fishonjazz said:

When President-elect Donald Trump said Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would recommend major cuts to the federal government in his administration, many public employees knew that their jobs could be on the line.

Now they have a new fear: becoming the personal targets of the world’s richest man – and his legions of followers.

Musk reposted two X posts that revealed the names and titles of people holding four relatively obscure climate-related government positions. Each post has been viewed tens of millions of times, and the individuals named have been subjected to a barrage of negative attention. At least one of the four women named has deleted her social media accounts.

“These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees. “It’s intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.”

This isn’t new behavior for Musk, who has often singled out individuals who he claims have made mistakes or stand in his way. One former federal employee, previously targeted by Musk, said she experienced something very similar.

“It’s his way of intimidating people to either quit or also send a signal to all the other agencies that ‘you’re next’,” said Mary “Missy” Cummings, an engineering and computer science professor at George Mason University, who drew Musk’s ire because of her criticisms of Tesla when she was at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Musk has done this kind of thing before – and it’s led to real danger for the people named.

Missy Cummings angered Musk when she was appointed a senior advisor at the NHTSA because her research and public comments were critical of Tesla’s driver-assist programs and she had called for regulating the systems.

Musk targeted Cummings on what was then called Twitter, and his legions of fans followed.

In an interview, Cummings said she received a torrent of attacks, including death threats, and had to temporarily relocate before she eventually moved.

CNN reached out to multiple experts and academics who specialize in cyber harassment, doxing and online abuse. But several declined to comment on the record for fear of themselves becoming Musk’s targets.

“What has happened has an incredible and horrific chilling effect,” one of them said.

Another said they are “not surprised” with Musk’s re-posts, adding they are an example of a “classic pattern” of cyber harassment.
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And not thing one can be done about it. The propaganda minister is firmly in place.
 
Did you guys know that brainworm Kennedy's wife commited suicide after discovering his journal with detailed descriptions of his cheating encounters with 37 women? I did not know until recently. Makes me even more disgusted that somebody like Bucknutz was promoting that cheating, disgusting quack for a president. Yuck. Like multiple idiotic conspiracies he was spewing was not enough.
 
fishonjazz said:
I can totally picture putin calling trump and saying "remember when we helped you out with your problems decades ago? (watch Active Measures) Well, now its time to pay up. Time to make America bleed" and trump is like "Dont worry, i will come through for you in the next 4 years. Just make sure there is a place for me at your table in Russia afterwards"
Click to expand...
LOL. I do think it is funny that even if Trump owed such a debt that your believe he'd pay it. No one has confused Trump with the Lannisters.
 
silesian said:
I agree. Calls between foreign leaders and POTUS do not need to be on secure lines. Let's just connect a 5-way calls with the Chinese, Iranians, Russians, and Syrians, because we know they are listening.
Click to expand...
All good so long as the State Department isn't listening. The Chinese, Iranians, Russians, and Syrians didn't impeach or prosecute POTUS for made up BS.
 
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