WHO SAID WHAT TO WHOM: It probably should come as little surprise that there is a notable lack of clarity about what President Trump said to Russian President Vladimir Putin in their private tête-à-tête when the White House disputes what reporters thought they saw and heard with their own ears. According to the video of the brief interchange at start of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting a reporter is heard asking Trump, “Is Russia still targeting the U.S., Mr. President?” Trump, arms crossed, replies, “Thank you very much. No,” Seeking clarification the reporter asks, “No? You don’t believe that to be the case?” Trump says again, “No,” before launching into a defense of his summit with Putin. “We’re doing very well, probably as well as anybody has ever done with Russia,” Trump said. “And there’s been no president ever as tough as I have been on Russia.” NO MEANS YES: After the comment sparked more blowback because it suggested, for the third straight day, Trump was questioning his own intelligence team, which has concluded Russia is still conducting cyberattacks on the U.S., White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted that after consulting with Trump, he meant the “No” to apply to no more questions. “The president said thank you very much and was saying no to answering questions,” Sanders told reporters, hours after the exchange took place. “We believe that their threats still exist, which is why we are taking steps to prevent it. Again, you wouldn’t go through that lengthy process if you weren’t.” GRAHAM REASSURED: After initially tweeting about his concerns over the “BIG discrepancy” between the president and his Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Sen. Lindsey Graham issued a statement saying he has been “reassured unequivocally” that Trump’s “no” response was not intended to suggest that the president doubts the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia is continuing to attack our critical infrastructure in the 2018 elections. “I’m very pleased to hear this and I stand ready to work with the administration to harden our electoral system against all foreign interference, including Russia,” Graham said. “The warnings from the intelligence community could not be more clear. Republicans and Democrats working with the president need to act quickly.” THE BIGGER CONUNDRUM: The deeper confusion comes over what Trump said privately behind closed doors to Putin, and what verbal commitments he may have made. In an interview with “CBS Evening News” that aired last night, Trump perversely complained that the news media didn’t focus enough on the substance of what went on in the private meeting between the two men. “They don’t, they didn’t cover my meeting. The important thing, frankly, was the meeting that lasted for two and a half hours, or almost two and a half hours. And in that meeting, we discussed many, many things that were very, very positive for both countries,” Trump told CBS News anchor Jeff Glor. The blowback, Trump said, was because “the press largely makes up a lot of the fuss.” “It’s crazy. You do something that’s positive, and they try and make it as negative as possible,” Trump said, telling Glor, “The level of dishonesty in your profession is extremely high.” MORNING TWEET: The president resumed his attacks on the press this morning, tweeting: “The Fake News Media is going Crazy! They make up stories without any backup, sources or proof. Many of the stories written about me, and the good people surrounding me, are total fiction. Problem is, when you complain you just give them more publicity. But I’ll complain anyway!” “The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war,” he added. “They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I’ll probably have a good relationship with Putin. We are doing MUCH better than any other country!” WHAT DID HE SAY: Trump said he discussed nuclear proliferation, the protection of Israel, and help with North Korea. “He said he will help. He agrees with what I’m doing. He thinks I’m doing a great job with respect to North Korea. He said he would help.’ On the Russian interference in U.S. elections, Trump said he was “very strong” on the fact that we can’t have meddling. “I let him know we can’t have this, we’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be.” IMPORTANT VERBAL AGREEMENTS: While there have been no specifics out of Washington, Moscow keeps talking about “important verbal agreements” were reached at the Helsinki meeting. The Washington Post quotes Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, as telling reporters in Moscow that the agreements included, “preservation of the New Start and INF” treaties and “specific and interesting proposals” to cooperate in Syria. ABOUT PUTIN’S ‘INCREDIBLE’ OFFER: The White House says it’s considered what Trump called “an incredible offer,” from Putin to allow U.S. investigators witness questioning of the 12 indicted Russian in return for access to people like Bill Browder, an American-born financier who successfully lobbied Congress to pass the 2012 Magnitsky Act, and Michael McFaul former U.S. ambassador to Moscow under former President Barack Obama. “He said it was an interesting idea. He didn’t commit to anything,” said Sanders yesterday. “He wants to work with his team and determine if there’s any validity that would be helpful to the process. But again, we’ve committed to nothing. And it was an idea that they threw out.” Last night on Fox, Browder reacted with outrage. “Putin wants to get me back to torture me to death, and President Trump thinks that’s an interesting idea and he’s not dismissing it? That’s just outrageous.” When asked if he felt safe, Browder replied, “I do not feel safe, of course not. I have the most dangerous homicidal sociopath in the word after me how could I possible feel safe.” On MSNBC, McFaul said, “This is yet another tactic to intimidate me … I just wish my own president, my own commander in chief would push back both in public and in private.” ON A DIFFERENT PAGE: While the White House said the U.S was considering Putin’s offer, the State Department seemed to be rejecting it out of hand. “The overall assertions that have come out of the Russian government are absolutely absurd,” said spokeswoman Heather Nauert. But when pressed could not say for sure that the idea was a nonstarter. “I will be sure to look into it and understand that it would be a grave concern to our former colleagues here,” Nauert said. Good Thursday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten). David Brown is out this week. Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter @dailyondefense. |
HAPPENING TODAY: We may, or more likely may not, find out more about how the U.S. and Russia could cooperate in Syria, when we hear from U.S. Central Commander Gen. Joseph Votel this morning. Votel is scheduled to brief Pentagon reporters at 8:45 a.m. remotely from his headquarters in Tampa, Fla. You can watch the livestream of the briefing on the Pentagon’s webpage at www.defense.gov/live. PLAYING INTO PUTIN’S HANDS: Trump’s comments about new NATO member Montenegro play into Putin’s efforts to shatter the alliance, Sen. John McCain said yesterday. “The people of Montenegro boldly withstood pressure from Putin’s Russia to embrace democracy. The Senate voted 97-2 supporting its accession to NATO,” McCain wrote in a tweet. “By attacking Montenegro and questioning our obligations under NATO, the president is playing right into Putin’s hands.” The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent out a series of tweets, after Trump wondered during a Fox News interview why the U.S. should respond if Montenegro was attacked. “Putin will do anything to shatter the transatlantic alliance. In 2016, he nearly succeeded in overthrowing Montenegro’s democratically elected government and murdering its prime minister in order to prevent it from joining NATO,” McCain tweeted. GOP PANS INTERPRETER TESTIMONY: Senate Republicans are shooting down a Democratic push to have the U.S. translator who sat in on Trump’s Monday meeting with Putin testify before Congress on what was said during their one-on-one discussion. “Not particularly,” Graham, a Senate Armed Services member, told reporters when asked if he wants to hear from translator Marina Gross. “We’re not going to go and start having interpreters in private meetings come out and testify.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, also a Senate Armed Services member who heads the chamber’s NATO Observer Group, was immediately backed up by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on her call for Gross to testify. But Republicans believe it would harm future discussions between heads of state. “No. I don’t want to hear from the translator from any other heads of state meeting because it completely destroy the kind of dialogue they’d have in those meetings,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a Senate Armed Services member who leads the NATO group with Shaheen. “The people who are requesting a translator need to commit to me that when they become chairs, let’s say if majorities change, that they’ll never have a closed session.” IMPEACHMENT FOR UNDECLARED WAR? Two long-time war critics in the House said Wednesday that Trump and any other president should face impeachment for waging war without a formal declaration from Congress. Reps. Walter Jones and Tulsi Gabbard have spent years calling for more scrutiny of U.S. wars, but upped their rhetoric by unveiling a resolution calling such military action punishable as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Both are members of the House Armed Services Committee. The latest proposed legislation would not be binding and is unlikely to be taken up by a Republican-controlled House that has batted away attempts at authorization votes, and would be loath to put Trump in the crosshairs of a war debate. Jones said he wants to spark a new debate and pointed to the Iraq invasion in 2003 under President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, Trump’s Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on Syria, and Obama’s operations in Libya as reasons to worry. “I think that Bush and Cheney should have been impeached, quite frankly, that’s one example. I think any president that sends a young man or woman to an area of the world without coming to Congress and we lose a troop who has been shot and killed, yes, I think Congress was bypassed,” Jones said. “What we are saying to a president is you come to Congress let us help you make the decision by debating and voting.” PARADE PRICE TAG: Plans for Trump’s parade to honor the U.S. military are proceeding apace. As of yesterday, a spokesperson for the U.S. North Command said the cost of the parade is “yet to be determined and will depend on the size and scope of participation.” But CNN reports the current estimate is the Nov. 10 events will cost about $12 million. The network pointed out the amount is nearly as much as the $14 million joint U.S.-South Korea military exercise Trump cancelled following his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month. Trump said ending the costly and provocative “war games” would save a fortune. The Freedom Guardian exercise was only the first of a series of exercises that could be suspended, if North Korea follows through on its pledge to denuclearize. WAS TRUMP SNOOKERED BY BOEING? Ever since Trump began touting big savings on the deal to secure two new Air Force One aircraft from Boeing, people have been scratching their heads to figure out how that could be, considering the Air Force was always planning to spend about $4 billion on the jets. Yesterday the White House said it finalized a $3.9 billion contract with Boeing and claimed $1.4 billion in savings over “the initially proposed $5.3 billion cost-plus contract.” I’m told that number was an inflated estimate that Boeing included on briefing slides that were shown to Trump at Mar-a-lago early on, and allowed Boeing to appear to give Trump a big price break. Most of the saving came from Boeing reselling two 747s that were not delivered to a previous customer, and eliminating a costly retrofit that would have allowed the presidential aircraft to be refueled in flight. The president did secure a fixed price contract, which will prevent the taxpayers from cost-overruns in the future. Defense News and Defense One have both reported, the jets were estimated to cost $4 billion, which would put the savings closer to $100 million. The figure was part of the Pentagon’s 2019 budget request earlier this year, according to Defense One. BUTINA’S INTEL TIES: The FBI has found evidence that the Russian woman arrested on charges of being an unregistered foreign agent had ties to Russian intelligence and should be jailed pending her trial. Federal prosecutors made the argument that Maria Butina, 29, also has an “incentive to flee” the U.S. She has been detained until her trial. Butina, a Russian national who entered the U.S. in 2016 and closely worked with Alexander Torshin, a friend of Putin, was arrested Sunday and indicted Tuesday on charges of conspiracy against the U.S. and acting as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian government. CORRECTION: In our Tuesday newsletter, the following remarks were mistakenly attributed to Maryland Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen. They were in fact said by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on CNN Monday: ““There are some steps that we could take … We could levy another round of sanctions. We could make them mandatory, not permissive. We could take a look at some of the statutes undergirding NATO and take away from the president the power to try to weaken our commitment to NATO.” “But, in the end, you know, Congress is kind of like the manager or the general manager of the team. President Trump is the one on the field every day executing foreign policy. We can’t stop him from saying things to undermine the EU and NATO. We can’t stop him from giving the press conference that he gave today. He alone can make the decision to rectify this.” THE RUNDOWN Defense One: Boeing is pitching the US a new F-15, using its Super Hornet game plan Bloomberg: BAE’s $1.3 billion contract for Howitzer delayed by U.S. Army New York Times: As ISIS fighters fill prisons in Syria, their home nations look away Defense News: US Navy asks Congress to shift millions to fix its new high-tech Supercarrier Reuters: U.S. offers India armed version of Guardian drone – sources Roll Call: Trump again skips intel briefing after siding with Putin Foreign Policy: State Department silent on MH17 anniversary following Trump-Putin firestorm New York Times: From the start, Trump has muddied a clear message: Putin interfered Breaking Defense: Trump’s vision & NATO’s future: Streamline the alliance for modern war Daily Beast: Bipartisan group of senators wants to remove Trump’s ability to go soft on Russia Defense Tech: US fighters may carry StormBreaker Foul-Weather Bomb by next year USNI News: Rep. Courtney: U.S. needs comprehensive national maritime strategy soon |
CalendarTHURSDAY | JULY 19 8:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. From Washington to Brussels: A Discussion on the 2018 NATO Summit with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis. csis.org 8:30 a.m. Longworth 1100. Full Committee Hearing on China’s Threat to American Government and Private Sector Research and Innovation Leadership. Intelligence.house.gov 8:45 a.m. Pentagon Briefing Room. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander, U.S. Central Command, briefs reporters via video from Tampa, Florida. Live streamed on www.defense.gov/live 12 noon. 1030 15th St. NW. Russia’s Interference in the U.S. Judiciary. atlanticcouncil.org 12:30 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security with Sen. Marco Rubio. heritage.org 4 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. No friends, no enemies? Trans-Atlantic relations after Trump’s Europe trip. brookings.edu MONDAY | JULY 23 11 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The Unmaking of Jihadism: The Current Effort to Combat Violent Extremism. csis.org 1:30 p.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Verifying Denuclearization: Where Do We Go from Here? csis.org TUESDAY | JULY 24 7 a.m. 815 Justison St. CBRN Defense Conference and Exhibition. ndia.org 8 a.m. 300 First St. SE. The Future of the U.S. Undersea Strategic Deterrent: Perspectives from the Hill with Rep. Joe Courtney. mitchellaerospacepower.org 12:15 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. The Military-Industrial Component of the U.S.-India Partnership. stimson.org 2 p.m. House Visitor Center 210. Hearing to Examine the Deployment of National Guard Personnel to the Southwest Border. homeland.house.gov THURSDAY | JULY 26 9 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Eighth Annual South China Sea Conference. csis.org 12 noon. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Identifying – and Isolating – Jihadi-Salafists through their Ideology, Practices, and Methodology. heritage.org
|
|
ADVERTISEMENT: NDIA invites you to attend the Army Science and Technology Symposium and Showcase August twenty first through twenty third at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in DC. Register today at http://www.ndia.org/ArmyScience |
|
