Presence on the world stage. so the more of a vacuum the u.s. creates for it in places like the middle east, the better. so it s it s understandable why the russians were reaching out. the question we don t know the answer to yet is why the trump campaign seems so eager to or the trump transition team seems so eager to reach back out. what were the russians offering to them? and, you know, other things we have no explanation for yet is why jared kushner, for example, was asking the russian ambassador to set up a secret secure channel from the russian embassy in washington to moscow. and it was the russian ambassador that said no. our equipment is a little too sensitive. what is your reaction to the flynn business? first of all, we know one reason why the trump administration the trump campaign, was so interested in trying to work with the russians. that s because paul manafort was actually on the payroll of the oligarchs close to the kremlin. leaving that aside, i think jar
At the time these conversations were happening between flynn and the russian ambassador, jared was in charge of foreign policy for the trump administration. for the trump team. he was the one that was approving every meeting that trump would or would not have with a head of state. he was the one that was determining foreign policy direction. so it begs credulity he would not have been aware of what he was discussing with kislyak. and if flynn was saying, hey, we re going to make sure these sanctions come off, i think jared was absolutely a part of that. there s no way we re not going to find that out. now, i don t think that s collusion. for me, you know, collusion implies that trump and putin were actually in some way working together to try to swing the election an illegitimate way. i don t see that. but i do see breath taking, staggering incompetencies. i think jared had no idea what he was doing was potentially problematic for awhat an administration would look like and there were
Who did have contact with the russians. we found probably more than 30 contacts. so the initial story has sort of fallen apart. the early story about michael flynn, the former director of the defense intelligence agency, who then moved into the inner circle of the trump campaign and became national security adviser for 25 days, his contacts are particularly fascinating. we were told initially that his conversations with ambassador kislyak, the russian ambassador at the time to the united states, amounted to holiday greetings. that seemed improbable, since they took place the day of and the day after president obama put sanctions on russia for the election meddling. we now know from the guilty plea that, in fact, they discussed the sanctions and the suggestion seems to be though we don t know the details of that discussion yet, that what he was
On the receiving end of this hatred. which presumably has been out there in the past, but it just feels like trump has given a license for these people to come out of the woodwork and to express their views more openly in a way they did not do before. when you came here, you didn t speak english. do you have memories of at that very young age trying to assimilate what it felt like? i was somebody who was eager to assimilate i, you know, wanted to shed my foreign identity and become an american. and as a result of that, you know, for better for worse, i don t speak russian today. i don t have any real ties to russia. i mean, i feel very american. i feel this is the only country i ve ever known. and yet at the same time, i m just taken aback by understanding that there s 800,000 d.r.e.a.m.ers out there, and for them it s also the only country they have ever known. and it just you know, it s very chilling for me to try to put myself into their shoes and think about what would happen
Toward the very top. combined with big increases in economic insecurity for the great majority. wolfe says the real puzzle is why this is a politically successful strategy. the republican party is pursuing an economic agenda afor the.1%, but needs to win the votes of the majority. berkeley political scientist, paul pearson, argues that trump entered office with a set of ideas and no real organization. thus his administration was ripe for takeover by the most ardent, organized party, the libertarian wing. nurtured and built up, this group of conservatives decided to ally with the trump administration to enact its long-standing agenda. so is it that the republican party is cleverly and successfully hood-winking its supporters, promising them populism and then enacting pluto