\nOn January 29, 2019, an impressive array of defense and intelligence\nexperts provided the annual U.S. Threat Assessment to the Senate. These career professionals were loyal\nRepublicans appointed by President Trump. \nNevertheless, in what was an unfortunately rare case of integrity among\nthe Trump cabinet, to a person they completely refuted all of Trump\u2019s ongoing\nstatements concerning our national defense and security threats. Their detailed, credible testimony further\ndemonstrated President Trump\u2019s ongoing dishonesty and failure to understand\nthese critical security and policy issues. \nHe refuses to listen to his experts, instead publicly rebuking them to\nhis great disadvantage and discredit. Trump\nhimself has become the biggest threat to the security of the United\nStates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contrary to Trump\u2019s repeated false assertions, the biggest threats facing the U.S. continue to be Russia, ISIS, North Korea, and Iran. Chinese economic and intelligence espionage remains a substantial threat on multiple levels. Climate change poses an existential threat because of increasingly catastrophic strategic, economic, health and other consequences. Lastly, they spoke about how our adversaries are perfecting and expanding their use of social media to undermine elections and create discord. There was not a single mention of a crisis at the southern border, immigration, MS 13, or any basis for President Trump\u2019s wall or hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kudos to the collective defense and intelligence leadership for speaking truthfully about these most vital national interests, despite anticipating juvenile and baseless backlash from Trump Tweets. He Tweets because he lacks the knowledge or understanding to speak intelligently or substantively. Kudos also to Republican leaders such as Senate Majority Whip John Thune for condemning Trump\u2019s ongoing attacks and refusal to learn these important matters. Long time Trump ally and defender Chris Christie said that when there is such consensus among the intelligence community, the President really needs to listen to them, not attack them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTrump was wrong about each of the threats discussed by HIS intelligence team. North Korea continues to develop its nuclear\nweapon capabilities posing a serious threat to the U.S. Trump\u2019s summit with Kim Jong Un was an abject\nfailure. Trump gave multiple concessions\nwhile Kim gave none. Yet Trump says he\nand Kim fell in love\u2026 Well, he does love\nruthless dictators and enemies of democracy. \nTrump was wrong about ISIS. He\nclaimed ISIS was defeated (on his watch) and the U.S. would immediately\nwithdraw from Syria. This cedes the\ncountry to Russia, providing Putin the stronghold in the Middle East he craves,\nnot to mention support for Turkish slaughter of our Kurd allies. More importantly, ISIS is anything but\ndefeated, having over 30,000 dedicated fighters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Iran deal was seriously flawed, in part because it failed to include\nIran\u2019s support of international terrorist organizations and efforts to destabilize\nits neighbors. That said, the focus of\nthe agreement was Iran\u2019s quest to become a nuclear power, which the rest of the\nworld could never allow to happen. Iran has\ncontinued to comply with the terms of the agreement even after Trump foolishly\nwithdrew the U.S. Lastly is Afghanistan. Peace talks, including with the Taliban, are\nessential to bringing about an end to the war after 18 years. That requires a legitimate, lasting agreement,\nnot the complete capitulation to the Taliban Trump supports out of ignorance\nand just for expediency. His positions\nprove Trump fails to understand these critical national interests, does not\nread the materials his staff compiles, and does not seek or accept their advice. He is dangerous and reckless, including with\nour national security. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nRussia is our adversary and Putin engages in overt and clandestine\nefforts to try and undermine NATO and democracy. Russia continues to illegally occupy sovereign\nUkrainian territory involving having annexed the Crimea. They persist in acts of aggression including the\nrecent unprovoked attack on Ukrainian naval vessels in the Sea of Azov wherein\nthey kidnapped and still hold hostage Ukrainian personnel. Putin violated longstanding missile defense\ntreaties that have helped maintain the peace between east and west and prevent\nnuclear war. Russia has offered to work\nwith North Korea to build a nuclear \u201cpower plant\u201d on Russia territory near\ntheir border. This directly undermines\nongoing U.S. sanctions and efforts to prevent North Korea from achieving\nnuclear weapons capabilities. Lastly, there\nis Russia\u2019s enduring campaign to interfere with U.S. and European elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite\nthis, Trump has had many private meetings with Putin without allowing U.S. advisors,\nstaff, or even translators in the room. \nThis dangerous and unprecedented activity has one reason \u2013 to conceal\nthe meetings from everyone including his own staff. Trump wants absolutely no evidence of their\nconversations which can only mean he is engaging in improper discussions with\nPutin. Perhaps he is making secret deals\nwith Putin or otherwise forming agreements before coordinating with Congress or\nour allies. Why not allow the staff to\nprepare him for the meetings like every other President. This would be especially helpful as Trump\nlacks substantive knowledge or even basic understanding of the array of complex\nissues facing the nations. Trump and\nPutin have one visible partnership \u2013 they endeavor to undermine and defeat the\nSpecial Counsel Mueller investigation. Trump\nand Putin both fear the results of that effort. \nWe know why. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTrump policies align tightly with Putin\u2019s priorities and world\nview. They are opposite of our own\ndedicated, capable career experts, including those Trump appointed and inexplicably\nignore the strong consensus of seventeen defense and intelligence agencies. Why does Trump shun U.S. interests and\npriorities in favor of Russia\u2019s? It begs\nthe ongoing questions as to whether he is pursuing personal business interests\nat the expense of U.S. national interests or whether Putin has compromising\ninformation on him of a financial and\/or salacious nature. At this point we do not yet know why, but we\ndo know what. Trump has private meetings\nwith Putin for which he goes to great lengths to prevent any accounting or\nevidence. He espouses Putin\u2019s policies\nover longstanding U.S. and allied policies. \nHe refuses briefings from our own experts or to learn critical\nissues. He repeatedly denigrates and inexplicably\ndismisses U.S. career professionals and his own political appointees, all of\nwhom are trying to help him. Looking at\nthe range of serious national security threats facing the nation, Trump himself\nmay be the biggest. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On January 29, 2019, an impressive array of defense and intelligence experts provided the annual U.S. Threat Assessment to the Senate. These career professionals were loyal Republicans appointed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21,141,143,198,208,223,226,244,282],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-annual-threat-assessment","tag-iran","tag-isis","tag-national-security","tag-north-korea","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}