{"id":12641,"date":"2018-07-16T18:03:58","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T01:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12641"},"modified":"2018-07-16T18:20:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T01:20:05","slug":"trump-backs-putin-attacks-us-intel-community-law-enforcement-dems-at-helsinki-summit-bradcast-7162018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=12641","title":{"rendered":"Trump Backs Putin, Attacks U.S. Intel Community, Law Enforcement, Dems at Helsinki Summit: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 7\/16\/2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_TrumpPutin_Helsinki_071618.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">On today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>: Our &#8216;WTF?!&#8217; coverage of the remarkable joint press conference following President Donald Trump&#8217;s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. [<i>Audio link follows below.<\/i>]\n<p>It was not 72 hours following US Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s indictment on Friday of 12 top Russian Military Intelligence officers on 11 felony indictments related to hacking into and stealing DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign emails and releasing them to the world, in an alleged attempt to manipulate the 2016 Presidential election, when Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realdonaldtrump\/status\/1018738368753078273\">tweeted<\/a>: &#8220;Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hours later he held his one-on-one summit with Putin in Helsinki before going on to hold a remarkable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/7\/16\/17576956\/transcript-putin-trump-russia-helsinki-press-conference\">press conference<\/a> in which, essentially, the President of the United States took Russia&#8217;s side in the matter on virtually every point.  In the bargain, he also attacked the FBI, the DNC and other Americans, as he stood next to the Russian President, taking his side <i>against<\/i> his own intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n<p>On one point, however, they differed. Trump asserted Putin had told him he was not involved in interference in the 2016 Presidential election and he didn&#8217;t &#8220;see any reason why&#8221; he would have been. But, when asked directly by a reporter if he &#8220;direct[ed] any&#8230;officials&#8221; to help Trump, who he says he supported over Clinton, Putin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/videos\/politics\/2018\/07\/16\/putin-yes-trump-election-acosta-reax-vpx.cnn\/video\/playlists\/trump-putin-summit\/\">admitted<\/a>, &#8220;Yes, I did.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, Trump failed to demand an explanation for any of the exceedingly detailed allegations contained in Mueller&#8217;s Friday indictments when directly asked by media, choosing instead to return to strange, and largely disproven assertions regarding Democrats, the DNC server, Hillary Clinton&#8217;s emails, his claims of &#8220;no collusion&#8221; with Russia and his great electoral college victory (which he also lied about.) Neither did he condemn Russia or its President in any way.  We have clips from several of those answers during today&#8217;s presser and reaction to it &#8212; much of it gobsmacked &#8212; from media, Democrats, former top intelligence officials, and even a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/07\/16\/politics\/congress-reaction-trump-putin-comments\/index.html\">number of Republicans<\/a>, including at least one Fox &#8220;News&#8221; host who, on air, just after the news conference, <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/media\/397217-neil-cavuto-trump-press-conference-with-putin-was-disgusting\">condemned<\/a> Trump&#8217;s behavior as &#8220;disgusting&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Then, we open up the phone lines to callers &#8212; who have a number of diverse opinions &#8212; on all of the above, even as most of the same U.S. electoral vulnerabilities said to have been exploited by Russia in 2016, remain equally as vulnerable just months before our crucial 2018 midterm elections&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_TrumpPutinHelsinkiWTF_Callers_071618.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><br \/>\n[audio:http:\/\/bradblog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman_TrumpPutinHelsinkiWTF_Callers_071618.mp3]<\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/stitcher.com\/s\/player.php?fid=25838&#038;src=psl\">Stitcher<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On today&#8217;s BradCast: Our &#8216;WTF?!&#8217; coverage of the remarkable joint press conference following President Donald Trump&#8217;s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. [Audio link follows below.] It was not 72 hours following US Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s indictment on Friday of 12 top Russian Military Intelligence officers on 11 felony indictments related [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1014,89,675,837,312,299,223,123,479,594,6,28,227,226,178,877,1196,252,477,417,949,497,107,1167,300,977,638,534,628],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-ben-sasse","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-chris-murphy","category-dan-rather","category-democrats","category-dept-of-justice","category-dnc","category-donald-trump","category-election-2016","category-election-irregularities","category-election-reform","category-fbi","category-hillary-clinton","category-impeachment","category-jeff-flake","category-joe-walsh","category-john-mccain","category-kpfk","category-lindsey-graham","category-mark-warner","category-mitch-mcconnell","category-national-security","category-neil-cavuto","category-republicans","category-robert-mueller","category-ron-wyden","category-russia","category-vladamir-putin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12641"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}