This was covered over the holiday, but I think it bears repeating: A delegation of Republicans from the House and Senate spent the Fourth of July in Russia, handing a propaganda coup to the Putin government prior Trump’s meeting with the boss man himself later this month.
Those Republicans are:
Senator Kennedy (LA)
Senator Shelby (AL)
Senator Daines (MT)
Senator Hoeven (ND)
Senator Thune (SD)
Senator Moran (KS)
Senator Johnson (WI)
Rep Granger (TX)
The meeting was closed to the American press. If you check the lawmakers’ Twitter feeds, all posted treacly paeans to American exceptionalism yesterday, but not a single one mentioned the Russia trip while they were abroad, even though politicians are usually quick to publicize their foreign policy junkets. Daines even posted photos that indicated he was in DC for the fireworks yesterday.
I don’t know when the delegation got back — maybe Daines was shaking hands with Lavrov in Moscow and back in DC for the fireworks show that evening. But it’s weird that no one tweeted about it at the time. Only Daines has broached the topic at all on Twitter, and he did so by posting a clip from a Fox News appearance this morning, where Republicans go to set up narratives:
It was great to join @AmericaNewsroom from DC this morning. pic.twitter.com/5E7xrTp41p
— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) July 5, 2018
Daines sounds tough on camera, but the Russian media is allegedly covering it in an altogether different light, i.e., saying that the Republicans rolled over on Crimea, affirmed Russia’s superpower status, etc. Senator Thune, that sun-kissed son of the prairie who once stirred David Brooks’ loins to absurd effect, sounded remarkably less butch than one would expect from a national security daddy, even in quotes from the American press:
Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, called for a “change in behavior” on the part of Moscow.
“The best way to demonstrate this as we head into the 2018 election is to show the American people and our congress and our administration that the Russians have no intention of messing or playing with the American election,” Thune told The Associated Press in an interview.
Pretty please. With sugar on top.
The Daines clip above includes a claim that’s increasingly peddled by Fox News and the Republican Party — that U.S.-Russian relations are at their lowest ebb since the end of the Cold War. But that’s just a flat-out lie:
Ahead of the 2018 election, Trump has embarked on this remarkable run of giving Russia stuff it wants. pic.twitter.com/EQSWXaU1I9
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) July 4, 2018
Trump can’t check items off Putin’s to-do list fast enough. But the myth-making by Republican lawmakers suggests that Trump isn’t the only Gooper who’s beholden to Moscow, as we’ve suspected all along.
Trump and his party want to come out of the upcoming summit looking like they’ve accomplished something other than complete capitulation to Putin. Expect gaslighting on an epic scale.