Ben Sasse: Trump Is Not Helping His Own Case

Yeah. I’d say so.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse has deemed Trump’s eagerness to share highly classified intelligence with the Russians “weird.”

Sasse is the newly crowned King of Understatements.

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In an interview on MSNBC, Sasse said:

“It’s not helpful that this was with the Russians,” he said. “This is just weird. We and the Russians do not have aligned interests. They want to exacerbate our internal distrust of each other, they want to fracture NATO. Putin is an enemy of the freedom of the press, speech and assembly, which is the beating heart of what America means.”

The Washington Post story from Monday night blew up the news cycle, and will likely dominate headlines and talking points from both sides for weeks to come, as an aside to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Things were further confused when national security adviser H.R. McMaster gave a statement of denial to things not even alleged in the WaPo story, and then left without taking questions.

Trump, himself, emerged in full, head-swiveling glory this morning, to tweet out that, as president, he has the right to tell whatever he wants.

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Yes. He may be allowed to declassify information, as president, but should he be doing it at random, off-script moments, and with officials from an adversarial government?

Sasse said sharing classified intelligence about bombs hidden in laptops on airplanes with the Russians goes against a lot of what the United States stands for.

“One of the basic duties of someone in a public office that has a public trust responsibility is to be celebrating what America is about and to be telling that story,” he said. “Right now, Washington isn’t doing any of that.”

No, right now, Washington is starting fires, then attempting to put them out with kerosene.

We can do better than this.

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