TRUMP HIDES FEELINGS ON RUSSIAN SCANDAL; SEE WHAT REPUBLICANS DID

To appreciate the strength of partisan tribalism in
contemporary politics, consider the evolution of
Republican voters’ attitudes towards Russia. The U.S.
adversary and its autocratic leader were quite unpopular
in GOP circles for many years – right up until Donald
MSNBC REPORTED THAT Trump started praising the Russian leader and benefiting
from Vladimir Putin’s support.
As recently as 2014, a CNN poll found that only 16% of
Republican voters saw Russia as an ally. The same poll
found last week that 56% of Republican voters now see
Putin’s government as friendly.
On a related note, the CNN poll asked Americans about
the Russia scandal, and the possibility that Trump’s team
colluded with our adversary while Moscow launched an
illegal espionage operation to attack our democracy. The
results found that one-in-five Republicans wouldn’t care
if such collusion took place, while 44% of GOP voters
would see this as a “minor problem.”
It’s against this backdrop that the president still struggles
to speak coherently about the underlying controversy. On
“Face the Nation” yesterday, CBS’s John Dickerson asked
Trump about the Russia scandal, and the president
immediately started repeating a series of odd talking
points – which he seemed to consider highly important –
that didn’t make any sense, before eventually saying :
“[K]nowing something about hacking, if you don’t
catch a hacker, okay, in the act, it’s very hard to
say who did the hacking. With that being said, I’ll
go along with Russia. Could’ve been China,
could’ve been a lot of different groups.”
Even now, Trump can’t bring himself to acknowledge
basic details about the controversy.
On a related note, in a Fox News interview that aired on
Friday, Trump was asked about the challenges of passing
his legislative priorities with a low approval rating, which
led the president to start complaining about “made-up
stories like Russia.”
“I call it the fake Russia story. Russia story was
made up because the – they were embarrassed by
their loss. They had this tremendous loss, a loss
like nobody has ever seen before. The Democrats
should never lose the Electoral College because
they automatically start with New York, California,
and Illinois. It’s impossible for Republican to win.
And not only did I won I won easily.
“So they made up this Russia thing to try and
deflect because they’re embarrassed by what
happened. The Russia is a phony – what do you
see is the Russia story? The Russia story. And
you see all of these other phony stories. It’s so
bad and for me to have great approval ratings in
light of all the faux press and the fake press I think
is amazing.”
For now, let’s put aside the fact that Trump does not
actually have “great approval ratings,” and his claims
about the nature of the election results are completely
detached from reality. Instead, let’s focus on the timeline
of events.
The Russia scandal broke during the 2016 campaign, and
the FBI began its counter-espionage investigation in July
2016. In Trump’s mind, the entire controversy was a
reaction to his unexpected election victory in November
2016, which only makes sense if everyone involved in this
story collectively had access to a time machine.