Where Were You During The Helsinki Summit?

There are remark­able events which become indeli­ble mark­ers for us in our lives. Those events, some trag­ic, some con­se­quen­tial, all serve to remind us of our past and guides us in the future.

[The-sup­posed] moon land­ing. The day President John F Kennedy was assas­si­nat­ed. The day Dr. Martin Luther King was assas­si­nat­ed. The day Bobby Kennedy was assas­si­nat­ed. The Day Ronald Reagan was shot. The day they knocked the Twin Towers down. The day we wit­nessed the Trump Helsinki sum­mit with Russian despot Vladimir Putin.

Regardless of what hap­pens from here on in, those of us who watched the high­lights, whether we know it or not, are wit­ness­es to a mon­u­men­tal event in mod­ern his­to­ry the full extent of which we may or may nev­er ever ful­ly be told.

IN RESPONSE TO DONALD TRUMPS HELSINKI SUMMIT WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN

“Today’s press con­fer­ence in Helsinki was one of the most dis­grace­ful per­for­mances by an American pres­i­dent in mem­o­ry. The dam­age inflict­ed by President Trump’s naiveté, ego­tism, false equiv­a­lence, and sym­pa­thy for auto­crats is dif­fi­cult to cal­cu­late. But it is clear that the sum­mit in Helsinki was a trag­ic mistake.

“President Trump proved not only unable but unwill­ing to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speak­ing from the same script as the pres­i­dent made a con­scious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair ques­tions of a free press and to grant Putin an uncon­test­ed plat­form to spew pro­pa­gan­da and lies to the world.

“It is tempt­ing to describe the press con­fer­ence as a pathet­ic rout – as an illus­tra­tion of the per­ils of under-prepa­ra­tion and inex­pe­ri­ence. But these were not the errant tweets of a novice politi­cian. These were the delib­er­ate choic­es of a pres­i­dent who seems deter­mined to real­ize his delu­sions of a warm rela­tion­ship with Putin’s régime with­out any regard for the true nature of his rule, his vio­lent dis­re­gard for the sov­er­eign­ty of his neigh­bors, his com­plic­i­ty in the slaugh­ter of the Syrian peo­ple, his vio­la­tion of inter­na­tion­al treaties, and his assault on demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions through­out the world.

“Coming close on the heels of President Trump’s bom­bas­tic and errat­ic con­duct towards our clos­est friends and allies in Brussels and Britain, today’s press con­fer­ence marks a recent low point in the his­to­ry of the American Presidency. That the pres­i­dent was attend­ed in Helsinki by a team of com­pe­tent and patri­ot­ic advi­sors makes his blun­ders and capit­u­la­tions all the more painful and inexplicable.

“No pri­or pres­i­dent has ever abased him­self more abject­ly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adver­sary; but speak­ing for America to the world, our pres­i­dent failed to defend all that makes us who we are — a repub­lic of free peo­ple ded­i­cat­ed to the cause of lib­er­ty at home and abroad. American pres­i­dents must be the cham­pi­ons of that cause if it is to suc­ceed. Americans are wait­ing and hop­ing for President Trump to embrace that sacred respon­si­bil­i­ty. One can only hope they are not wait­ing total­ly in vain.”

“My peo­ple came to me,[Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coates came to me, some oth­ers, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any rea­son why it would be”
[Donald Trump]

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