Week 153 - All Roads Lead to Putin

This week they just said it out loud: Trump’s  acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney scolded reporters, saying Ukraine  was a quid pro quo, and “Get over it!” This was yet another in a series  of unending trial balloons to gauge just how far Trump could push  boundaries, and what he could normalize on his path to deconstructing  our democracy. At the same news conference, Mulvaney informed reporters  that Trump would host the 2020 G7 summit at his Doral Resort, an  unprecedented act and another trial balloon. By the end of the week,  Republicans were tiring of Donald J. Trump. Further evidence of shifting moods was the flow  of career professionals and Trump appointees defying his stonewall and  testifying before Congress. Unlike his successful dodge of the Mueller  probe, the reporting and testimony all seem to point to Trump being at  the center of demanding help from a foreign government, and withholding  Congressionally-approved funds as a hammer. At week’s end, in a  congressional hearing on Hurricane Maria, it became clear it had done  the same to Puerto Rico, withholding aid approved by Congress at his  whim. Trump has also shown his utter ineptitude on  foreign policy, and the consequences of his withdrawal of troops from  Syria resulted in calamity one week later. By week’s end, diplomats were  questioning if the U.S. could be held responsible for Crimes Against  Humanity for ethnic cleansing, due to Trump’s callousness and  indifference, at times seeming to encourage Turkish brutality. As noted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “All  roads lead to Putin” — Trump has handed Russia two huge victories by  hobbling support to Ukraine and leaving a vacuum which Moscow quickly  occupied in Syria. Hillary Clinton posited Trump being compromised by  Russia, and Admiral Michael McRaven said in an op-ed, “Our Republic is  Under Attack from the President.” Again, we seem to be teetering on the  end of Trump or the end of American democracy. Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-153/