Things have gotten ugly. How ugly? The U.S. ambassador to Russia is former Utah governor Jon Huntsman. His brother, Paul Huntsman, is the owner and publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune. In an editorial published in today’s issue of The Salt Lake Tribune, Robert Gehrke says that Ambassador Huntsman needs to resign.
Ambassador Huntsman, you work for a pawn, not a president. It’s time to come home.
There is no other reasonable course of action to take after Monday’s disgraceful joint news conference with President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin…
…Ambassador Huntsman, you have two sons who wear the uniform of the U.S. Navy. How is it possible to entrust their future to such a cowardly, misguided commander in chief who has demonstrated time and again a fundamental disregard for U.S. security and our moral authority internationally?
This has to be the last straw. To remain silent and continue to serve this president would be complicity in the undoing of our nation and its status as a world leader.
Come home, Mr. Huntsman. Your country needs you.
I don’t know about you, but unless I got a pretty strong “go ahead,” I would not demand the resignation of our publisher’s brother and write that a failure to resign would amount to complicity in the undoing of our nation. Since Mr. Gehrke’s editorial appeared in print, it’s probably safe to assume that Paul Huntsman agrees that his brother ought to step down.
None of this was cleaned up by Trump’s non-apology and pathetic attempt to claim he misspoke. Trump is beholden to Vladimir Putin and only the willfully blind now fail to see this. He did not misspeak. He said the exact same things he’s been saying for three years now.
This seems like a good week to visit my archives, so to prove my point, let’s go back to March and look at a long excerpt from my piece: Trump’s Lies About Moscow Tower are Impeachable.
Trump spent the summer and fall of 2015 telling anyone who would listen that he had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin and that he was a great leader. He repeatedly suggested that he’d get along with Putin much better than President Obama had been able to and that this would be a positive for the country. Typical of this time period was an appearance Trump made on Bill O’Reilly’s show on September 29 where he said “I will tell you that I think in terms of leadership, [Putin] is getting an ‘A,’ and our president is not doing so well.”
“Putin is now taking over what we started and he’s going into Syria, and he frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing,” Trump told Fox News Tuesday, after ending his boycott against the network. “If he wants to fight ISIS, let him fight ISIS. Why do we always have to do everything?”
What people didn’t know was that in this exact period of time, he had Cohen and Sater hammering out the details on a licensing agreement for this:
The tower — a sheer, glass-encased obelisk situated on a river — would have soared above every other building in Moscow, the architectural drawings show. And the sharply angled skyscraper would have climaxed in a diamond-shaped pinnacle emblazoned with the word “Trump,” putting his name atop the continent’s tallest structure.
As Putin ramped up Russia’s military commitment in Syria in an effort to bolster the regime of Bashir al-Assad, Trump kept approving of the move and suggesting his real motive was to attack ISIS, a sworn enemy of Assad. Here’s what he told the Guardian two weeks before he signed the letter of intent on a Moscow Tower:
“[Putin]’s going to want to bomb ISIS [in Syria] because he doesn’t want ISIS going into Russia and so he’s going to want to bomb ISIS. Vladimir Putin is going to want to really go after ISIS, and if he doesn’t it’ll be a big shock to everybody.”
From the outside, Trump’s behavior was bizarre and hard to understand. Being so friendly to Vladimir Putin didn’t seem consistent with U.S. foreign policy objectives and it certainly didn’t look like a coherent political strategy. Phillip Bump of the Washington Post noted this in December:
…Putin’s poll numbers among Americans are terrible. Globally, Russia is viewed very negatively, according to Pew Research, with two-thirds of Americans holding an unfavorable view of the country. Three-quarters of Americans have no confidence in Putin to do the right thing — which presumably includes offering political endorsements.
If Trump didn’t care about U.S. interests and his actions and words made no sense politically, why was he acting this way?
If people were suspicious before, their concerns were amped up to eleven by statements Trump made on December 18 and December 20. Appearing on Morning Joe on the 18th, Trump made news when he dismissed host Joe Scarborough’s observation that Putin kills journalists who don’t agree with him by saying, “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.” He followed that up on December 20 by telling George Stephanopoulos that there was no proof that Putin had killed anyone:
“…in all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t’ seen that. I don’t know that he has. Have you been able to prove that? Do you know the names of the reporters that he’s killed? Because I’ve been — you know, you’ve been hearing this, but I haven’t seen the name. Now, I think it would be despicable if that took place, but I haven’t’ seen any evidence that he killed anybody in terms of reporters.”
There was a lot of outrage on both points. That Trump would deny that Putin kills journalists was curious and offensive, but that he’d assert that even if it were true it was no worse than what America does was seen as delusional and unpatriotic.
At that point, I think a lot of people began to seriously question whether Trump had some financial ties or interests in Russia that explained his behavior. And, of course, that’s exactly what was going on.
In 2015, Trump was realistically more interested in building Europe’s tallest building in Moscow than he was in becoming president of the United States. In 2018, he is still interested in something other than being president of the United States. Maybe that is just not getting caught. Maybe it’s worse than that. Regardless, Trump started out as a candidate denying that there is any moral difference between Putin’s Russia and America and he’s still doing it. Back in 2015, he dismissed reporting on Putin’s murder of journalists. Yesterday, he dismissed reporting on their intervention in our elections. People are acting shocked but there has not been a change of approach or behavior. It has been consistent throughout and it was just as suspicious in 2015 as it is now.
I’m glad people are being asked to resign, but it’s pretty late in the game for people to be figuring out that Donald Trump is captured by the Russians.
I am not shocked because I have been intently reading your posts and as well as the Washington Monthly…
However what I fear are the 63M “willfully blind” Trump voters that are not shocked and in fact on Breitbart right now saying things like:
“When The Donald triggers the Leftists / Progressives this completely, you know he’s on the right path. What the Leftists hate, is generally good for America”
These people no longer have any regard for the truth and have not for a long time now…
GOTV!
Best not to underestimate that crowd.
Because Russia came at us from all kinds of angles, made inroads into NRA and all that they represent, made inroads into Prayer Groups, tentacles into rural voters, Campaign coffers and more, perhaps Trump’s policies are the only thing that are going to get that crowd to wake up. It’s one thing to be talked into thinking Putin’s not really that bad, it’s another thing to look at your paycheck or your crops and realize you were better off doing business with our allies.
It probably is too late for symbolism, Jon Huntsman’s resignation would be lost in the ether but that doesn’t make it wrong for him to do it. We don’t have time to waste waiting for Trump’s policies to take hold any further.
Really, it’s too late. A late resignation, or a resignation under pressure, is worthless. Sure, it would have meaning, but anybody of conscience would have been out of that country on the first available flight.
Huntsman is a traitor.
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Huntsman is an exceptionally qualified and talented ambassador. When he goes, we’ll get someone less qualified and perhaps even nutty. A Bolton type. I don’t see that as progress but a contribution to the decline.
. . . support of those statements (specifically, “Huntsman is an exceptionally qualified and talented ambassador”)?
Not saying you’re wrong. But that he’s willing to tolerate Trump as boss seems . . . well . . . not evidence in support of them.
And it will be better if he leaves in protest? Not convinced of that.
The entire point of serving a government like Trump’s is in the hope of advising policy and him listening to your advice against his own gut leanings. If he ignores you, humiliated you, and does what he was going to do in the first place…why are you still there? You’re just an enabler at this point.
Perhaps he is providing important information to the State Department or other agencies?
I just don’t see why replacement with a Trump toady would be in our best interests.
There is zero evidence that Trump reads anything from his state department officials and a lot of evidence to suggest he outright ignores them. His briefings and intelligence ops consists entirely of watching Fox News.
Even when they provide him with a statement about Russian meddling to read before the country he strikes out “hold those who did this responsible” and writes in sharpie “no colusion”, and ad libs about “others also responsible”. John Kelly — his own chief of staff — had to lobby Congress to get them to put pressure on releasing this statement, a statement he couldn’t end up reading and is going back to doubling down on what he initially said in Helinsky.
Trump isn’t the only one who sees/reads communications from the Ambassador to Russia. Of course I don’t expect him to take any advice.
The purpose of an ambassador is not to provide information to the State Dept. S/he is the President’s representative to the host government. Believe me, having worked for State/USAID, the State Dept. has many, many people in Russia, including at the Embassy to keep them informed including CIA and other agents with other official titles as we all know.
Putin probably informed Trump that he wanted a competent ambassador not the usual Republican sleazy millionaire or wingnut ideologue.
I wouldn’t bet on actual economic anxiety tempering our nation’s gaggle of reprogrammable meatbag fascists.
Like large swaths of the Russian citizenry, there are levels of survival they are willing to accept in order to “own the libs!” and see the Other suffer at the hands of the state.
Ya, I’m probably talking too much from my own perspective where I’m seeing whole rural counties lose their income this year because fruit crops are crashing. First the tariffs on the apple orchards and lately a quirk where Mexico and EU are flooding raspberry markets so that locals can’t survive. There’s a whole lot of farmers that now know they’re screwed.
Anecdotal of course, but my local Kroger’s fruit selection compared to last summer is WEAK.
So they know they’re screwed. Who are they blaming? who will they vote for?
We’ve got two of my favorite observations about the modern right wing in the US here.
Cleek’s Law:
Davis X Machina:
Davis’ quote is an expansion of the still-too-pertinent LBJ quote:
Setting aside the support based purely on the Crazification Factor, the Popular Vote Loser’s support boils down to
He Hates Who They Hate
As I’m sure you have noticed, it’s all the rage right now for the MSM to go ask farmers / factory workers in `real america’ how they feel about the tariffs ruining their income, after voting for Trump. One I read today was a nail factory in Missouri that’s going down because of tariffs. They are all so, so disappointed.
But in November they will vote straight Republican, like they have their entire lives.
They don’t care if they lose their jobs, and have to piss in a bucket, as long as the brown guys (their workers, BTW) get deported, and the black guys have to go without the bucket.
.
And, not surprisingly there are those, unfortunately probably millions of them, who acknowledge Russia helping Trump win, and call it a good thing since it prevented “that bitch” from being president because emails, the server and Benghazi!
You might want to be sitting for this full blown loonery:
https://twitter.com/HuffPost/status/1019299447606571008
Jon Huntsman has been a DC insider since at least leaving the Utah Governorship. I find it highly unlikely he didn’t know one of the most obvious facts about the President-elect that no one dared talk about at the time, but are suddenly “discovering” after one botched press conference.
So I question Jon’s innocence in all this.
This week’s OMG-He-IS-a-Russian-Asset media/Republican Party/Right Wing Media couch fainting is the worse DC kabuki theater I’ve seen since everyone finally admitted there never were WMD’s in Iraq in 2006 or the Tea Party was just racist Republican base voters given a ton of dark money and free broadcast media support in 2011.
It is really funny to hear the change in tone from my senators. I’ve been used to dismissal and argumentive staff, but now they are somber and almost sound ashamed.
Regarding Brother Huntsman’s paper:
https:/www.sltrib.com/opinion/2018/07/18/tribune-editorial
At least Mr. Gehrke signs his work.
Huntsman strikes me as a Jeff Flake style republican. He cultivates a brand of a moderate, “thoughtful” conservative, with integrity and a “heart.” He may even speak out publicly against right wing orthodox crazy from time to time, and mildly chide its leaders for racism and plain cruelty. But at the end of the day, remains loyal to the republican party, whoever is leading it at the time, including the crazies, and whatever policy they’re promoting, previous branding pretensions be damned.
Reasonable interpretation.
However, he did serve Obama as Ambassador to China. So maybe loyal to the establishment than just to the Republican Party?
He did, for a time:
August 7, 2009 – Huntsman is confirmed by the US Senate as US ambassador to China.
January 2011 – Delivers letter of resignation to President Barack Obama, stating his intention to step down as ambassador on April 30, 2011.
Not even half of a full term.
I would not necessarily call that tenure one that bespeaks of a higher loyalty to anything beyond the clarion calls of “conservatism.”
I’d also chalk it up to careerism. Some of these guys would work for the devil if the role would add value to their resume.
An interesting epilogue:
“Jon Huntsman has spent decades cultivating a reputation as a pragmatic Republican. Now some of his allies are urging him to ditch the Trump administration.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jon-huntsman-ambassador-russia-trump-urged-to-quit_us_5b4e7ce8e
4b0b15aba89a6af
“Days after Huntsman spoke about the need to hold Russian government officials accountable for interfering in the 2016 election, his boss, President Donald Trump, stood alongside Vladimir Putin on Monday and told the world he believed the Russian president’s denial of any wrongdoing.”
Not only did he make a fool of Huntsman, this sends the clear signal that there is no respect or integrity in this position working for Donald Trump, his traitorous buffoonery notwithstanding.
Huntsman lasted less than two years with Obama, in a far less compromising an environment. Let’s see if he does what many of these so called “pragmatic republicans” say but never do, and actually resigns. Given his relatively high-profile position, and the damage that resignation would do to The Fuhrer, I won’t be surprised if party loyalty kicks in like it always does for these guys, and he stays.
Resign? Hell, Huntsman probably came up with Trumper’s preposterous “I don’t see why reason why it would be, er, um, wouldn’t be [Russia]” gambit. Known today as the “walk back”, haha.
Huntsman is in too plum a position from which to resign—this isn’t Latvia! He’s not leaving his crowning achievement in public service on some goddamed principle like serving a Manchurian president.
Anyway, this spectacular “clarification” (i.e. complete reversal) makes clear that the National Trumpalists think they can literally throw anything, however absurd, however intellectually dishonest, out there for public and media consumption. Imagine sitting in a meeting and concocting this strategem: “yes, you meant precisely the opposite, Mr. Prez, you just didn’t notice your massive gaffe at the time, and neither did any of us, your NSC team! You really meant a double negative ‘wouldn’t’ as you were kissing Putin’s ass! Yeah, that’s the ticket!”
So Der Trumper is either a coward or a quisling. Which is it, Gruppenfuhrer von Bolton?
Goebbels would be disgusted at such incompetence and boobery, by both leader and toadies. But he would be impressed that a people as stupid and gullible as the incompetent white electorate had been created via mass media propaganda. Clap, trained seals, clap! Jawohl!