Andrew McCabe says Trump-Putin interactions ‘raise questions’, as Harris says Putin would eat Trump ‘for lunch’

Donald Trump can be seen as a Russian asset, though not in the traditional sense of an active agent or a recruited resource, an ex-FBI deputy director who worked under the former US president said.

Asked on a podcast if he thought it possible Trump was a Russian asset, Andrew McCabe, who Trump fired as FBI deputy director in 2018, said: “I do, I do.”

He added: “I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term. But I do think that Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the United States, and I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things that he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions.”

Speaking to One Decision, McCabe said: “You have to have some very serious questions about, why is it that Donald Trump … has this fawning sort of admiration for Vladimir Putin in a way that no other American president, Republican or Democrat, ever has.

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It’s cowardice.

      If they know for a fact he’s a busted flush, they’ll all come out of the woodwork gunning for him, but they’re all such complete cowards that nobody will stand up if there’s any chance he might be able to hit back.

      Also:

    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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      3 months ago

      It’s all most comical how easily manipulated he would be.

      “Oh hey DJT, old mate vlad here. I saw your bigly crowd at that thing. Now do you think you could throw Ukraine under the bus for me? That would be rad”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    He refused to commit to saying who should win in Ukraine during the debate. I don’t think any more need to be said.

      • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        If it’s not repeated then it’s doomed to be forgotten. We move too fast in the information age and there is too much information to keep in mind. We must repeat the important things.

        • recklessengagement@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          This is a good sentiment. Just because your specific in-group believes something doesn’t mean its common knowledge. It is still deserving of attention.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Stalin used to use the term ‘useful idiots’ for Westerners who would help advance his interests. Sometimes they were sincere progressives who thought that Stalin was a trusted ally, and others were blatant opportunists.

    Or as Khrushchev said, ‘when the time comes to hang the West an American businessman will sell us the rope.’

    https://www.wired.com/story/if-trump-is-laundering-russian-money-heres-how-it-works/#:~:text=The payments appear to mirror suspicious

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/#:~:text=“There have long been credible allegations

      • Emotet@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        Yup. A variation of the quote (basically capitalists instead of American businessmen) is commonly attributed to Lenin instead of Khrushchev. But that, too, can’t be verified and is said to be fake.

            • Juice@midwest.social
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              3 months ago

              I don’t know there are these ideas get stuck in our head and we just assume they are true for some reason. This “the capitalist will sell us the rope we will use to hang him” is prolific, its everywhere and one has to wonder why. There’s no truth in it. People would attribute it to Marx too but Marx would never say that. I think its a cultural relic that serves to make communism sound badass and scary. But hanging capitalists will not put the world on the path to socialism, if anything the opposite must be true.

              • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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                3 months ago

                I always read it metaphorical in terms of ‘they make available the resources with which to undermine them’

                • Juice@midwest.social
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                  3 months ago

                  Well Marx already has the formulation of “capitalism creates its own gravediggers” which is his idea that the material conditions created by capitalism create individuals who are committed to overthrow it, and so the challenge historically is how to get these people all pulling the same correct direction, and once you do, how do you keep it from breaking apart or giving into reformism or whatever.

                  But there’s something about the way it is framed? Those of us who want to see capitalism overthrown are able to read something more abstract into it, but the metaphor persists more or less intact. The brutality of it never gives way to the truth that we read into it. So in that way when we accept the truth there is violence that hitches a ride in our reasoning. How far are we then from Bordiga’s formulation of “Socialism and Barbarism”? Idk. Everyone knows that quote, but people don’t know about Matewan, or the American Strike waves of 1932, or Burkina Faso, or Pancho Villa.

                  In short, is what we are learning and repeating educational in a revolutionary way? After all, as Paulo Friere said, “When education isn’t liberating it is the dream of the oppressed to become the oppressor.”

  • ReverendIrreverence@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    What McCabe should have said, probably wanted to say and would be correct in saying was that Drumph is a “Useful Idiot” to Putin

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Donald Trump a de facto Russian asset, FBI official he fired suggests

    No shit? Gee thanks corporate news. Hey can you also let us know how the 2017 Superbowl worked out? We’re all on fuckingpins and needles over here.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    3 months ago

    You know so often these things say fired but (from wikipedia):

    “As part of the settlement, the government agreed to “rescind and vacate” McCabe’s termination, correct its records”