A Quote by Tim Kaine
In Donald Trump, you have somebody who praises Vladimir Putin all the time. America should really wonder about a President Trump, who had a campaign manager with ties to Putin, pro- Putin elements in the Ukraine, who had to be fired for that reason. They should wonder - when Donald Trump is sitting down with Vladimir Putin, is it going to be America's bottom line or is it going to be Donald Trump's bottom line that he's going to be worried about with all of his business dealings?
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America should really wonder about a President Trump, who had a campaign manager with ties to Putin, pro-putin elements in the Ukraine who had to be fired for that reason. They should wonder when Donald Trump is sitting down with Vladimir Putin, is it going to be America's bottom line, or is it going to be Donald Trump's bottom line he's going to be worried about with all of his business dealings. This would be solved if Donald Trump would release his tax returns as he's told the American public that he would do.
[Vladimir Putin] complimented him. That led Donald Trump to then compliment Vladimir Putin and to defend Vladimir Putin's actions in a number of places around the world.
Donald Trump is going to have to live in the real world in which Vladimir Putin is exactly who he presents himself to be, and Putin is extremely skilled. He's not going to make it very easy for the United States or Germany. And he's going to test Trump.
When [Vladimir] Putin goes out and tells everybody - and you talk about a relationship, but he says Donald Trump is going to win and Donald Trump is a genius, and then I have people saying you should disavow. I said, I'm going to disavow that?
Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.
Donald Trump, again and again, has praised Vladimir Putin and it's clear that he has business dealings with Russian oligarchs who are very connected to Putin.
The Trump campaign management team had to be fired a month or so ago because of those shadowy connections with pro-Putin forces. Governor Pence made the odd claim, he said inarguably Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama. Vladimir Putin has run his economy into the ground. He persecutes LGBT folks and journalists. If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you got to go back to a fifth-grade civics class.
I don't think Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump really have friends. But Trump has openly admired Putin for many years, with no reservations. He even seems to idolize him. Neither his cabinet appointees nor the civil servants in the Pentagon and the State Department feel the same way, however, so we don't know what this admiration will bring.
We know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up [Vladimir] Putin, to support Putin, whether it's saying that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of allies if they were invaded, talking about removing sanctions from Russian officials after they were imposed by the United States and Europe together, because of Russia's aggressiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, his praise for Putin which is I think quite remarkable.
Vladimir Putin is the bigger danger than Donald Trump because Trump can be dealt with within American democracy. There is an independent judiciary. He cannot overrule American courts. He will have to play by some rules. He will do damage certainly, but to do real damage I think he is too weak. Putin is aggressive wherever he can be. In Europe, in Germany, Putin will not stop.
If our country got along with Russia, that would be a great thing. When Putin goes out and tells everybody - and you talk about a relationship, but he says Donald Trump is going to win and Donald Trump is a genius, and then I have people saying you should disavow. I said, I'm going to disavow that?
Trump loves dictators. He's got kind of a personal Mount Rushmore, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein. And last and most dangerously, Donald Trump believes - Donald Trump believes that the world will be safer if more nations have nuclear weapons.
Donald Trump's views on Vladimir Putin, I think, are troubling. And I don't think he fundamentally understands exactly who Vladimir Putin is or exactly what he's trying to do. So, these are the kinds of things that I think in detail you need to begin to understand.
Actually, I think we all understand just fine why Donald Trump is president: because he ran a racist, boorish, epically mendacious campaign and Republicans all decided to go along with it. And even that wouldn’t have been enough if Trump hadn’t gotten some additional help from his pals James Comey and Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump said that he thinks he can get along very, very well with Vladimir Putin and have very, very good relations with Russia. I'm sure he can, if he is willing to turn away from our NATO allies and reconsider whether Eastern Ukraine is really part of the country, and do whatever he can to accommodate Mr. Putin's views.
Look at it from [Vladimir] Putin's perspective, right. He's a trained intelligence officer, worked for the KGB, very talented, manipulated people much smarter than Donald Trump. He played this perfectly, right. He saw that Donald Trump wanted to be complimented.
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