international norms. that will be something that i think we ll learn more about as the president-elect puts his team together. as the president implied, we still do not know where donald trump stands on many issues, including this one. while his admiration for vladimir putin was one of the few things he remained consistent on throughout the campaign, there s evidence he may be sympathetic to some kremlin priorities as well. trump never put forth a russia strategy, and he s yet to name his foreign policy team. meanwhile, the issue couldn t be more urgent. earlier this week, not long after trump held his first post-election phone call with putin, russia began a new offensive in syria raining down bombs on rebel-held areas of aleppo. a city that s seen the worst of syria s crushing five-year war. this comes as russia is cutting ties with the international criminal court, raising alarms among human rights advocates though we should note the u.s. is not a member either. at the same someti
the suggestions that he may pull the u.s. military out of japan, out of south korea, encouraging them to develop their own nuclear weapons as a sort of deterrent, suggesting that allies from nato, to japan and south korea, that he may need to weigh whether they paid up enough to determine whether the u.s. will continue to support them or be part of the security alliances. that instability, that uncertainty, alone, has already done damage. we saw president obama today encourage trump to be careful about his language and about his approach to russia. on monday there was a readout of a call in which he said he was looking forward to a wonderful relationship, on tuesday, russia announces an air assault on rebel-held parts of syria. we can already see, there are consequences to the words that donald trump is using, even before inauguration day. and james, if there s a through line in trump s thought about international relations, it s the sense of u.s. being humiliated, right, of the u.s.
relationship on tuesd relationship, on tuesday, russia announces an air assault on rebel-held parts of syria. we can already see, there are consequences to the words that donald trump is using, even before inauguration day. and james, if there s a throughline in trump s thought about international relations, it s the sense of u.s. being humiliated, right, of the u.s. being it s all zero sum. you really wonder about if and when other power attempts to test, essentially, the u.s., how that plays into the decision-making fros. exactly, with russia and putin, we have one kind of provocation that s very obvious. east asia, china, japan, both koreas, the asean nations, there s been a balance for the last three or four decades that s been based on the presumption of u.s. continuity of policy. so who knows where the challenge will come there, but it will be some sort of challenge in that region, too. all right. james fallows, moll lowy o tool thanks for your time. harry reid is warni
in condemning anything like this. but, again, i ve said this for a long time, donald trump was created by mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. i ve i gave a major speech, at least in my i thought it was major, where i talked about the fact that i went over item by item that all this birtherism and all the stuff immigration, all the stuff dealing with muslims, that all came from this congress. trump picked up on it. here s the deeper question. when you have these incidents of harassment, sometimes violence. you have some very ugly rhetoric with the candidate, himself, now president-elect has used. you ve been in politics a long time. do you view president-elect trump as someone who you think is going to be a bad president? or do you view him as a fundamental threat to the republic?
here s the thing. with japan, they have to pay us or we have to let them protect themselves. wouldn t you rather in a certain sense have japan have nuclear weapons when north korea has nuclear weapons? we have to renegotiate these agreements. our country cannot afford to defend japan, south korea, many other place. she took that as saying nuclear weapons. look, she s been proven to be a liar on so many different ways. this is just another lie. well, i m just quoting you, when there s no quote. you re not going to find a quote from me. adviser to the japanese prime minister told reuters he d spoken to several trump advisers and lawmakers since arriving in washington monday, and have been told we don t have to take each word that mr. trump said publicly literally. joined by james fallows, national correspondent for the atlantic and molly o toole at foreign policy. a.p. reporting general michael flynn was offered national