Pre-cooked Deliverables<\/p>\n
In the past, when the President of the United States met in a \u201csummit\u201d with another world leader, teams from the two nations would negotiate for months before the meeting.\u00a0 Their goal was to reach a few agreements that the two national leaders would claim as a result of the successful summit. Those agreements were called \u201cpre-cooked deliverables.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>On the official American side, there was no agenda.\u00a0 There were no \u201cpre-cooked deliverables\u201d agreed upon in advance, there were no concessions made before the meeting began. \u00a0Yesterday in Helsinki, President Trump met with Vladimir Putin without a topic beyond the \u201crelationship\u201d between the US and Russia.\u00a0 This left the field open to the Russians, who were able to manipulate the outcome to achieve many of their clear purposes.<\/p>\n The Russians didn\u2019t get sanctions lifted (though Putin did offer up a \u201ctrade\u201d of sorts, election hackers for Bill Browder and lifting of the Magnitsky Act.)\u00a0 They didn\u2019t get US recognition of the takeover of Crimea from Ukraine.\u00a0 Other than those, the Russians achieved what had to be a long laundry lists of items.\u00a0President Trump dumped his own intelligence agencies in favor of the Russian leader, he took the Russian side of disputes with the European Union, he spent a large portion of the press conference attacking the American media, and Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party. After the \u201csummit\u201d Russian officials called the outcomes\u00a0 \u201cfabulous\u2026better than super.\u201d<\/p>\n And the United States really gained nothing but embarrassment.\u00a0 Putin was able to once again deny the Russian involvement in the 2016 American elections, denied the poisonings in the United Kingdom, and received what sounded like major concessions in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Almost unanimously (with the notable exception of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the lead story on Fox News) American officials outside the Administration were shocked and dismayed at the President\u2019s actions. \u00a0Republican Senators McCain, Flake, Corker, Graham and Speaker Ryan, all spoke out against the statements made by the President, as well as the full lineup of Democratic leaders.<\/p>\n Commentators looked back at the great \u201csummit failures\u201d of the past:\u00a0 Kennedy\u2019s ill-fated meeting with Khrushchev in 1961 (leading to the Soviets putting nuclear weapons in Cuba) or Obama\u2019s 2013 G-20 stare down with Putin (ending the \u201creset\u201d with Russia.)\u00a0 But Trump\u2019s performance yesterday brought back the specter of the greatest of all summit failures:\u00a0 Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain\u2019s Munich meeting with Hitler in 1938.<\/p>\n Hitler demanded that Chamberlain allow Germany to take over Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain bought time for Great Britain to prepare for war by giving in to him.\u00a0 Chamberlain returned to Britain holding the agreement and touting \u201cpeace in our time.\u201d\u00a0World War II started a year later.<\/em><\/p>\n President Trump\u2019s performance is not the beginning of World War III.\u00a0 But it, along with the President\u2019s actions at the NATO meetings and in the United Kingdom before the summit, have led our real allies to question our commitment.\u00a0 Germany today begins to evaluate whether the United States is an ally or adversary; the Eastern European nations formerly part of the Soviet Union are re-evaluating US defense promises.\u00a0 But the greatest shock was the President NOT defending his own government in an international forum.<\/p>\n There are three possibilities for the President\u2019s actions.\u00a0 The first:\u00a0 he was not prepared.\u00a0 There was no preparation for the meeting, there were no \u201cpre-cooked deliverables\u201d or scripted agendas.\u00a0 President Trump walked into a meeting with Vladimir Putin \u201ccold,\u201d and got taken.\u00a0Trump was maneuvered into defending himself instead of pressuring Russia, and Putin got to look \u201cPresidential\u201d and equal.<\/p>\n The second: \u00a0the President can\u2019t get beyond himself.\u00a0 Mr. Trump fed his base with the same lines as his rallies; from investigating Hillary Clinton to Fake News to \u201cno collusion.\u201d\u00a0And perhaps, there is that deal for \u201cTrump Tower \u2013 Moscow\u201d still in the works, the one the President denied throughout his campaign.<\/p>\n The third, and most ominous, is that Putin really does have \u201cthe goods\u201d on Trump.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s unsavory video tapes, the Trump Organization\u2019s dependence on Russian financing to stay in business, or the proof of the Trump campaign\u2019s conspiring with Russian Intelligence; it would place our President in the role of an \u201cagent\u201d of Russia.<\/p>\n Whichever the case, the actions of President Trump should be questioned by every American.\u00a0 We expect our President to stand up for American institutions, we expect him to stand up for our traditional alliances, we expect him to be a strong leader.\u00a0 What happened yesterday brings all of that into question.<\/p>\n Perhaps these are the \u201cpre-cooked deliverables\u201d the Russians prepared.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"