WH furious over Russian government photos of Trump meeting with Lavrov/Kislyak. "They tricked us," an official said of Russians "They lie."
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 11, 2017
Sooooo unlike our very own Republican Party…
These Oval office photos show men who share the same contempt for rule of law. Remember them. https://t.co/s1rAfEN75Z
— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) May 11, 2017
“He chose to receive him because Putin asked him to.. Putin did specifically ask on the call when they last talked.” https://t.co/xPBbdmFPsk pic.twitter.com/nDTtnNpz5s
— Evan Rosenfeld (@Evan_Rosenfeld) May 10, 2017
Lavrov was "right where he wanted to be" this week, "mocking U.S. while being welcomed into Oval" by Trump https://t.co/CJQg4dUgKV
— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) May 11, 2017
Probably would’ve been enough just to tell the President-Asterisk that you-know-who refused Putin’s request…
… The meeting was Lavrov’s first in the White House since 2013—and came after several years of the Obama administration’s flat-out refusal to grant him an Oval Office audience, two former senior White House officials told me. “The Russians were begging us for years to do that,” one of the former officials said. “They were constantly pushing for it and we were constantly saying no.”…
Russia’s longest-serving foreign minister of the post-Cold War era, Lavrov has worked alongside Putin since 2004 with a single-minded goal: to make Russia great again—and all the better if he could do so at America’s expense. So, for Lavrov and Putin, the scene was more than just a bizarre moment of Washington political theater in which they played walk-on roles. It was vindication, proof that their tilt toward Trump after years of tense dealings with two successive American presidents could yet pay off.
In some key respects, this already is a down payment on the Russian reset Trump promised on the campaign trail. Or at least an appearance-laden first step toward the renewed relations and potential grand bargain with Putin that Trump has never disavowed even as the politics of doing a deal with Russia have gotten dicier amid the political furor here in Washington over the Russiagate investigation of team Trump that Comey was overseeing…
On a personal level, Lavrov is universally disliked among U.S. diplomats. “He’s a complete asshole,” a top Bush official told me for that Foreign Policy profile. Added a top Obama official in a conversation Wednesday: “He’s a nasty SOB. He would be relentlessly berating and browbeating and sarcastic and nasty. His job was to berate and beat and harass us and Secretary Kerry into conceding the Russian view. It wasn’t defeating America; it was that Russia can’t win if it has to compromise at all.”.
And many of these same officials believe that gives Lavrov—who went out of his way at a news conference Wednesday to praise Trump as a “businessman” who wants to get deals done—an advantage in negotiating with Trump at a time when there is little clear about his foreign policy except that he wants to cut deals that are proving frustratingly elusive on other fronts.
“I don’t see him as zero-sum and suspicious of and averse to the West as Putin is,” said another former Obama official who sat in many meetings in recent years with Lavrov. “He believes more in at least tactical cooperation, at least in a broader context of strategic nonalignment. I think he did actually look for opportunities. I also think he plays to his bosses. So the extent to which he’s acerbic and nasty—that’s partly his personality and partly what he believes Putin and actual powers that be want to hear.”…
Ego-drunk, overconfident amateurs got played by the professionals. Hey, GOP, remember the old proverb: If you look around the poker table and can’t pick out the mark… it’s you.
“Now that those Russians are gone we can breath a sigh of relief”
“Yeah, at least that’s over”
“Uh…”
“Anyone seen the football?” https://t.co/nVK0u9b1eZ
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) May 11, 2017
Open Thread: <em>“They Lie”</em>, You Say?…Post + Comments (39)