DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Trump revealed classified info to Russians in White House Meeting!

FWIW, Trump just pretty much admitted that he revealed information via Tweeter.

To be fair, he's defending his right to do so and frankly, I believe that the President does have the right.

What I won't accept is that he apparently thinks it's okay to jeopardize ongoing operations that are being run to thwart terrorism.

Then he takes pictures with these Russians in the Oval office. That will no doubt be used as Proganda in Russia.

he's being played and isn't smart enough to know it. What a dolt.

Yes he has the right to 'declassify' classified information, but doing it on a whim while being braggadocious about how much quality intel he is getting is at a bare minimum unnerving. I'm beginning to really think he is incompetent and not just stupid.

He is SO happy in those pics with the rooskies too, yet old allies he treats with disdain. If he's not in bed with Russia, he sure doesn't go out of his way to paint a different picture. I think Putin must have had somebody whisper that he might like Trump into Trump's ear on the sly. Trump gets all giddy when he's feeling loved. Makes me wonder about his childhood.

THis is how our Allies looked at Trump before he did this, how do you think they view him this morning?

NATO Frantically Tries to Trump-Proof President’s First Visit

NATO is scrambling to tailor its upcoming meeting to avoid taxing President Donald Trump’s notoriously short attention span. The alliance is telling heads of state to limit talks to two to four minutes at a time during the discussion, several sources inside NATO and former senior U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. And the alliance scrapped plans to publish the traditional full post-meeting statement meant to crystallize NATO’s latest strategic stance.

On May 25, NATO will host the heads of state of all 28 member countries in what will be Trump’s first face-to-face summit with an alliance he bashed repeatedly while running for president. NATO traditionally organizes a meeting within the first few months of a new U.S. president’s term, but Trump has the alliance more on edge than any previous newcomer, forcing organizers to look for ways to make the staid affair more engaging.

“It’s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump,” said one source briefed extensively on the meeting’s preparations. “It’s like they’re preparing to deal with a child — someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They’re freaking out.”

Still, despite these changes, experts are wary of how Trump will react to NATO meetings and their long-winded, diplomatic back-and-forth among dozens of heads of state, which can quickly balloon into hours of meandering discussions. One former senior NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described these meetings as “important but painfully dull.”

Rank-and-file diplomats always try to push for shorter, more efficient meetings at NATO. “It’s not so unusual that they strain to try to keep it interesting and short and not dragged down into details,” said Jim Townsend, who served as the Pentagon’s top NATO envoy until January. But what is unusual is the president.

“Even a brief NATO summit is way too stiff, too formal, and too policy heavy for Trump. Trump is not going to like that,” said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert with the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

Another change: NATO traditionally publishes a formal readout, known as a declaration, after each major meeting or summit. While they’re often lathered in diplomatic drivel, declarations signal new strategies and key policy shifts that come out of closed-door meetings, giving direction to allies and the NATO bureaucracy — and showcasing alliance unity toward rivals like Russia, a former senior NATO official told FP.

This year, NATO has scrapped plans to publish a full formal meeting declaration. One NATO official said that’s because it’s not a full summit, like past major NATO gatherings in Warsaw in 2016 or Wales in 2014. “It’s not necessary to have another full declaration, as it’s not a full summit,” the official said. “This meeting is just much more focused.”

But behind closed doors, other officials are giving a different reason. NATO isn’t publishing a full declaration “because they’re worried Trump won’t like it,” another source said.

Experts say a declaration could be invaluable to European allies still struggling to get a read on Trump’s stance on Europe. Four months into office, Trump hasn’t clarified U.S. policy toward Europe — he cheered Brexit and appeared to endorse anti-Europe candidate Marine Le Pen in the recent French elections — let alone toward NATO.

Trump rattled NATO allies during the campaign by slamming the alliance as “obsolete” and openly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since he became president, top administration officials, including Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence, traveled to Brussels to soothe Europeans’ nerves and reiterate customary U.S. commitments to the 68-year-old alliance. Meanwhile, Trump declared in April during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that the alliance is “no longer obsolete.”

But the president’s erratic policy shifts and surprise Twitter storms on other international issues have NATO jittery, a former senior NATO official told FP. (Trump offered a taste of this during his awkward meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March, where he refused to shake her hand; German officials also said he handed her a fake “bill” for overdue NATO payments, though the White House swiftly denied those claims.)

“People are scared of his unpredictability, intimidated by how he might react knowing the president might speak his mind — or tweet his mind,” the former official said.

Or, as another current senior NATO official put it before the meeting: “We’re bracing for impact.”

Beyond nerves over Trump, the May 25 meeting is important in another way. It will be the first visit for newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron. And NATO leaders will use the meeting to unveil their new headquarters — a sleek, modern edifice meant to symbolize a new and modern alliance. But it also embodies the alliance’s shortfalls. The building is way behind schedule and over budget.

The senior NATO official who spoke to FP on condition of anonymity expressed concern that this could be a sore spot with Trump as he pushes European countries to spend more on defense. Although Trump may know little about the military alliance, he does profess to know something about getting buildings done on time and on budget.

If they can keep Trump’s attention, NATO heads of state are expected to discuss two main issues at the meeting, both catering to the president’s priorities: counterterrorism and burden-sharing.

On the counterterrorism front, the United States is pushing NATO to formally join the counter-Islamic State coalition at the meeting, but Germany is pushing back against the idea, multiple sources tell FP. All NATO members are involved at a national level, and while the alliance supports the mission, it’s not yet a formal member of the coalition.

“Some members say it’s not necessarily the right format,” a NATO official told FP. “Since all NATO allies are already members … the question is what could we do as an alliance we are not already doing.”

But beyond that, and potentially sending more troops to Afghanistan, where it has been fighting the Taliban and other terrorists for about 15 years, officials concede that NATO hasn’t thought up much more to do.

Part of the issue is staffing. After months of Trump’s threatening a radically new approach to global alliances the United States helped create, there’s nobody even charting a new course. Trump hasn’t appointed any high-level posts for Europe, including key Pentagon postings, undersecretaries of state, an assistant secretary of state for Europe, or a new ambassador to NATO. With no middle management to give direction on a day-to-day basis, Europeans are struggling to decipher what the new administration wants from them.

“That’s where there’s a ton of panic in NATO,” a source told FP. “The United States put that issue forward, but it has nobody on tap who’s doing any sort of fresh thinking on that front.”

Trump is also expected to push his Canadian and European allies to pony up more for defense. Burden-sharing has always been a sore spot in U.S.-NATO relations. The United States is by far the largest defense spender in the alliance — its share of NATO spending has skyrocketed in recent decades — and it has long warned other allies to bulk up their military budgets, to little avail.

“His views of burden-sharing seem to be more ambitious than past presidents,” and that could become a source of tension at the big NATO confab, said Alexander Vershbow, former deputy secretary-general of NATO. “The burden-sharing conversation may not go entirely smoothly,” he told FP.

Only five of the 28 members — the United States, United Kingdom, Poland, Estonia, and Greece — met the NATO guidelines of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, despite a more aggressive Russia and an unraveling security situation in the Middle East.

Ultimately, to keep Trump on board, NATO will probably set out to sell those recent changes as a concession to Washington, even though “98 percent of the changes NATO undertook are because of Russia, not because of Trump,” Benitez said.

That might secure Trump a happy ending to this first meeting, but could spell more trouble down the road.

“They may give Trump credit, but privately many allies feel they’re being bullied into it,” Benitez said. “Trump’s approach to NATO is poisoning the relationship.”

One former NATO official said the agenda meant to mollify Trump appeared to amount to repackaging what NATO was already doing — increasing its defense spending and continuing to support U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and the counter-Islamic State campaign — in a new wrapper for the president.

“They think they’re fine because they’re going to put old wine in new bottles,” one former senior U.S. official told FP. Whether Trump buys it remains to be seen.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/15/nato...urope-brussels/

They see him as a Man-Child imho.

40..... where you at????????

I need you to spin this.

He has under desk duty and will be too busy in the WH to reply.

Just imagine if Obama had done this. Oh My!

I could be wrong, but I thought 40 said he'd be off the board for a couple of weeks.. Maybe I have the wrong... not sure.

Trump is that kid in school that has all the new gear in sports so he looks like he's really good, but come game time he's actually the least talented kid on the team.

And Trump supporters are those annoying parents arguing at the coach for their kid to have more playing time, even though their kid keeps making the team lose games.

Takes awhile to get a blue dress dry cleaned...

That makes me sad, I rather enjoy his trolling.

Well Arch, Peen, Eve etc.

your boy just admitted to the very thing you wanted to argue with me over.

i understand it's early in the day, but i hope we get a response from y'all sometime today.

O'reilly's spin factor show is over, so we need new blood in order to spin these stories.

HE probably did but his faithful news media covered it up and you know it

LOL This Swamp has a self draining valve.

Maybe if Trump invited his faithful news media into the Oval office that day he wouldn't be in this huge pickle, and you know it.


Besides I'm pretty sure Obama never had a closed meeting in the WH with the Russians so your comment is BS

He admitted what?

Actually unnamed sources is all you got, talk about B.S.

He literally bragged on twitter this morning about declassifying information and sharing it with the Russians.

to giving classified intel to russians.

he just said as much on Twitter.

What's worse is that McMasters gets in front of the press and says the reports are false, but then Trump turns around and admits to doing it.

That's why i always felt bad for Spicer. dude had to get up there everyday, defend Trump's lie, and then lie about lying cause his President just admitted to doing something he said at first was a lie.

i wonder how many alcoholics has produced within his own administration. hell, i wouldn't be surprised if his staffers have to show up drunk to work just to deal with the nonsense.

Pay no mind to that. He's just joking. You know.

To be fair to Trump, the press secretary has, since Nixon, always be the least informed person in the white house.

that's true, but i never seen a press secretary have to maneuver this much in order to keep up with the president.

these guys have to somehow correlate their statements and hope that Trump doesn't say something the opposite on Twitter.

to be fair, we never had a president actively on Twitter, though.

I don't see anything on Trump's twitter account admitting he shared classified information with Russia. Where is it?

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

Ahh, sorry Riley,, he basically admitted to it on Tweeter this morning.

Some will say, and maybe correctly, that he is allowed as President to give out whatever information he wants to.

That doesn't make it smart.

Also, why defend yourself if you didn't do it..

So yeah, I'm sure he opened his mouth to brag and some stuff came out that shouldn't have.

Trump is a joke

People like you put partisanship over our country's security! Whatever.

You actually follow him on Twitter.

I don't follow anyone on twitter. I looked up his account after someone said he admitted to revealing confidential information on there.

Okie Dokie

I know 40 is gone for 2 weeks and Diam said he was going to be gone too... but where are the Trump supporters? I'd like to hear them weigh in on this and other threads.

oldcold...where are the Trump boys?

Well, what Trump did is damn hard to defend. Here is a headline and link to a story from a "conservative" radio personality...

Erick Erickson: Trump’s Russia Leak Is ‘Far Worse’ Than Reported

The conservative pundit says he knows who leaked the news about the president giving confidential intel to Russia.

05/16/2017 01:22 pm ET | Updated 19 minutes ago

link

I didn't here or see that but ill take your word and I stand corrected .....peace

I'm right here, reading, trying to gather more info.

Let's face it, the press is well know for blowing things out of proportion when trump is involved. How about we not go crazy over these reports, just yet?

Is that fair?

he admitted to doing it, thus making the reports correct.

so no, that isn't fair. what would be fair is for you to call this what it is. you blasted other politicians for mishandling of classified documents and lies.

so how bout you finally call out Trump for mishandling of classified documents and lies.

He admitted to sharing facts. Do facts now equal classified information?

seeing as he isn't denying the reports that it was classified documents, in this case, the answer is yes.

Well, by being commander in chief, he can declassify any document. The real problem is he shared previously classified information, shared with us by Isreal, to Russia whose two biggest allies in the middle east are Iran and Syria.

He admitted to sharing classified info? What classified info?

First, it's not criminal for a president to do that, right?

Secondly, what "classified" info was divulged? And, how do we know anyway? Someone else must have leaked it, right?

Thirdly, and this comes from Glenn Beck, who has really turned against trump recently, the biggest thing in all of this is perhaps the country WE got the info from will quit sending us intel. IF their intel was leaked.

Notice the "IF"

So, what classified info was leaked to the russians?