Section: POLITICO – U.S. Edition (USA)
Can the World Survive A Perpetually Combative President Trump?
Can a perpetually combative man who—despite his career successes (or perhaps because of them)—sees life as a series of fights to be won, scores to be evened and counterpunches to be delivered, be trusted to shape the foreign policy of the world’s most consequential power? Donald Trump, who last week finally clinched the Republican...
When Donald Trump brought Miss Universe to Moscow
On June 18, 2013 Donald Trump had some exciting news: he would soon be whisking dozens of the world’s most beautiful women to Russia.“The Miss Universe Pageant will be broadcast live from MOSCOW, RUSSIA on November 9th,” Trump tweeted that day, referring to the beauty pageant he owned at the time. “A big deal that will bring our countries...
Why Middle Eastern Leaders Are Talking to Putin, Not Obama
The United States has significantly more military capability in the Middle East today than Russia—America has 35,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft; the Russians roughly 2,000 troops and, perhaps, 50 aircraft—and yet Middle Eastern leaders are making pilgrimages to Moscow to see Vladimir Putin these days, not rushing to Washington. Two weeks...
The Selling of Obama
President Barack Obama insists he does not obsess about “the narrative,” the everyday media play-by-play of political Washington. He urges his team to tune out “the noise,” “the echo chamber,” the Beltway obsession with who’s up and who’s down. But in the fall of 2014, he got sick of the narrative of gloom hovering over his White...
The Kremlin’s Candidate
Back when he hosted a prime-time talk show on MSNBC, Ed Schultz divided the world into heroes and villains. The heroes usually included Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The villains were most Republicans, and especially Donald J. Trump. When Trump obsessed over Obama’s birth certificate and academic credentials in 2011,...
Why Obama loves the queen more than her country
LONDON – At their Friday press conference here, President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron together used the phrase “special relationship” more than a dozen times. At times they cast it in almost romantic terms: Obama professed his “love” for Winston Churchill. Cameron declared his “passion” for the Anglo-American...
Obama sees another foreign policy goal crumble in Syria
President Barack Obama’s most tangible success in his push to stop Syria’s bloodbath — a cease-fire struck in late February — is rapidly turning into a failure. His fiercest critics in Congress, meanwhile, are basically saying, “I told you so.”The always-fragile truce “may be breaking down” the president...
Trump terrifies world leaders
President Barack Obama is trying but failing to reassure foreign leaders convinced that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. They’re in full-boil panic.According to more than two dozen U.S. and foreign-government officials, Trump has become the starting point for what feels like every government-to-government...
Trump campaign brings in lobbyists for key posts
Donald Trump’s new chief campaign strategist, Paul Manafort, is bringing on some close associates for key spots on Trump’s presidential campaign, including several whose lobbying histories seem to epitomize the special interest influence against which the candidate rails. Among the influence industry veterans who have been helping the...
The Secret U.S. Army Study that Targets Moscow
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster has a shaven head and gung-ho manner that only add to his reputation as the U.S. Army’s leading warrior-intellectual, one who often quotes famed Prussian general and military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz. A decade ago, McMaster fought a pitched battle inside the Pentagon for a new concept of warfare to...
