U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin sharply criticized the financial credentials of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Thursday, saying the 17-year-old should study economics at college before lecturing the U.S. on fossil fuel investments.
Speaking at a press briefing at the World Economic Forum, Mnuchin was asked whether the world’s largest economy needed to completely and immediately divest from fossil fuels. “Is she the chief economist or who is she? I’m confused,” Mnuchin said, before adding this was “a joke. That was funny.” “After she goes and studies economics in college she can come back and explain that to us,” Mnuchin said.
Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow only has a Bachelor’s Degree in history, but whatever.
Greta meanwhile, responded like a mature adult:
My gap year ends in August, but it doesn’t take a college degree in economics to realise that our remaining 1,5° carbon budget and ongoing fossil fuel subsidies and investments don’t add up. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/1virpuOyYG
“So either you tell us how to achieve this mitigation or explain to future generations and those already affected by the climate emergency why we should abandon our climate commitments,” Thunberg said.
The fact that both Trump and Mnuchin actually feel it’s necessary to derisively insult this young woman repeatedly, rather than treat her concerns with the respect they deserve as a voice for her generation, says everything.
Millions tuned in to the impeachment trial. But you saw something different on Fox.
Big headlines this morning:
Fox News leads ratings in day one of impeachment trial!
That is true. But it’s misleading people into thinking that most Americans watched on Fox. Many more people watched on a number of other networks;
The opening day of President Trump’s senate impeachment trial drew a substantial amount if viewers across the three cable news and major networks that broadcast the proceedings.
In total, around 11 million people tuned in to see prosecutors from the House of Representatives and attorneys for the White House argue over exactly how the complicated case should proceed.
Fox News led the way with 2.65 million viewers (from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.), followed by CBS with 1.94 million in the same time frame. MSNBC came second among the cablers with 1.9 million, with CNN bringing up the rear, drawing 1.44 million. ABC drew 1.63 million viewers with its coverage, while NBC drew almost exactly the same figure as CNN.
NBC was the only major network to cover the trial in the evening (5:18 p.m. to 7:40 p.m.), during which time it received a healthy boost in numbers to 2.8 million, topping Fox News which drew 2.63 million, MSNBC at just under 2 million, and CNN at around 1.5 million.
In terms of the key news demographic of people aged 25-54, Fox News narrowly beat out ABC and CNN for top spot. FN delivered 394,000 to ABC’s 385,000 and CNN’s 383,000. Next came CBS with 362,000, followed by NBC with 350,000 and finally MSNBC with 261,000.
In primetime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), Fox News led the way with 3.5 million to MSNBC’s 2.5 million and CNN’s 1.5 million.
This doesn’t count the people who were listening on the radio or watched online. It also doesn’t delineate “prime time” on the west coast vs the east coast. The trial was running in both.
But the point is that more people were watching on the other networks than were watching on Fox. And those watching on Fox were not actually watching the trial. To be precise, they weren’t hearing the trial.
Fox News has the optics of covering the #ImpeachmentTrial without actually covering it. They've been showing screen-in-screen video of the proceedings without audio. Instead, hosts are providing Trumpian spin. It's propaganda giving the illusion of journalism. Remarkable. pic.twitter.com/NKbN2Sic1o
What this means is that the Trump cult is seeing something different than the rest of the country, as usual. But there are more people in the rest of the country who are seeing the actual trial.
51% of the country wants Trump removed from office and those people are not watching that drivel. It should follow that if the Republicans refuse to do their duty, he will be removed next November anyway. And a few of them might suffer the same fate.
Trump’s having a meltdown. He broke his one day record for tweets yesterday at 142. They were all retweets of his sycophants licking his boots and saying the trial is rigged.
I liked this one from this morning.
….OF THE 2020 ELECTION BECSUSE IT WEAPONIZES A PROCESS THAT SHOULD ONLY BE INITIATED IN EXCEEDINGLY RARE CIRCUMSTANCES, AND SHOULD NEVER BE USED FOR PARTISAN PURPOSES.” @HeatherChilders@FoxNews The Democrats are trying hard to damage Republicans prior to the Election!
That’s right. The Trump defense is that the Democrats are trying to interfere with the 2020 election. They’re almost literally saying “I know you are but what am I?”
But he finally weighed in himself this morning:
The Democrat House would not give us lawyers, or not one witness, but now demand that the Republican Senate produce the witnesses that the House never sought, or even asked for? They had their chance, but pretended to rush. Most unfair & corrupt hearing in Congressional history!
He stonewalled the Democrats completely, offered no witnesses, no documents, no testimony. The ones who testified did so in defiance of his orders.
The Democrats & Shifty Schiff, whose presentation to the Senate was loaded with lies and misrepresentations, are refusing to state that the Obama Administration withheld aid from many countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Philippines, Egypt, Honduras, & Mexico. Witch Hunt!
He fails to mention that Obama wasn’t asking for help with his re-election in return. But he thinks that’s fine. After all, he got away with eagerly accepting help from Russia last time, amirite?
I hear on my TV this morning that some of the Republicans are calling for the smelling salts over Jerry Nadler saying they are engaged in a cover-up because it was so rude and insulting.
Seriously. They are almost surely going to acquit the man who calls Adam Schiff “Schifty Schiff” on a daily basis because the Democrats were rude? Why yes, they will say that. And the media will chase down every Democrat and ask them to disavow those comments and admit that they were very, very wrong to even think that the Republicans were covering up for Trump.
That bizarre dynamic is partly responsible for what got us here today.
Meanwhile, Trump seems to be a little bit worried about this as well:
….during his hopeless “presidential” campaign. They will remain silent! The fact is, when Mini losses, he will be spending very little of his money on these “clowns” because he will consider himself to be the biggest clown of them all – and he will be right!
Unless Rep. Adam Schiff has
something extraordinary up his sleeve, no deus ex machina is flying in
on a clothesline to save the republic from Donald Trump and Mitch’s Potemkin court. Trump acquitted will be a
more truculent enfant terrible than he is now. Reelected, he will do to
America what he’s already done to Lindsey Graham. He’s already made Republicans
his vassals.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell has made no secret of his interests, writes Dan Froomkin. “His only ideology is
power. And he realizes that maintaining power requires money.” Forget
appealing to precedent, history, or separation of powers. “If it doesn’t
help Republicans get elected, he’s not interested.” And riling Trump’s
base during the impeachment trial won’t help get Republicans elected.
Not even overwhelming public outcry
is likely to move Senate Republicans to waver in support of their Leader, nor
from helping cover up his crimes. Last night in a Facebook
post, historian Rick Perlstein (“Nixonland“) offered a theory for why:
This is a very perilous moment. At the American Historical Association conference a few weeks ago I saw a brilliant paper demonstrating that Germans who left behind evidence during World War II that they knew that killing Jews and committing other war crimes was wrong and against the law were more likely to kill Jews and commit war crimes. This was because (1) they had passed a point of no return, and (2) the motivation became even more frenzied devotion to “winning” as the state defined it, because they realized that if Germany lost, they would be punished–because, again, they knew they were breaking the law. I may not be characterizing the argument exactly right, and, of course, the evils we’re talking about are not quite to that level, but the dynamic, it seems to me, is similar: now that all these Republican “moderates” are on the record advancing what Jerold Nadler correctly call a coverup with their votes again evidence and witnesses, it becomes all the more important for Trumpism to prevail so they never have to face the music for their sins–and they may work with ever greater frenzy to make sure Trumpism never loses. To liberals who think to themselves, “The House managers’ presentation is so airtight and inarguable, surely one of these Republicans will break”: well, the very air-tightness might have the opposite effect. They may commit themselves ever more strongly to the ratchet toward dictatorship. Because if Trump loses, they can now imagine themselves in the figurative dock.
A key difference between Perlstein’s
example and ours is Germans had seen punishment after World War I, that is, in
recent collective memory. They had reason to fear accountability as a real
prospect. Republicans over the last half century, on the other hand, saw Gerald
Ford pardon Nixon, Reagan dodge impeachment, and George H.W. Bush pardon six of
Reagan’s Iran-Contra co-conspirators.
They saw the administration of
George W. Bush lie the country into war and commit war crimes with impunity
courtesy, in part, of Barack Obama’s wanting to “look forward,” not back. They
witnessed the financial industry bring the world economy to its knees and go
unchastened, only to get richer and more powerful courtesy, again, of Barack
Obama’s wanting to “look forward,” not back.
Yet, even if they fear no
punishment, Republicans may have reached their own “point of no
return.”
Meanwhile, half the country has
heard “a rising tide lifts all boats” from both parties for forty
years yet sees no lift from rising
productivity. The rich just get richer, nonwhite people get more
numerous, and Trump’s base gets more anxious its accustomed social and
political dominance will be lost to the multicultural latter.
In justifying his Iran-Contra
pardons, Bush argued the prosecutions amounted to “the criminalization of
policy differences.” Expect to hear that phrase again soon. William Barr sits
atop Trump’s Department of Justice just as he did under Bush 41. As things sit
now, Republicans and the donor class have little reason to fear punishment.
The rest of us had best get busy
giving them reason to.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my
free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us.
This is what
winning looks like.
It turns out most of the former Reagan worshiping movement conservatives really didn’t give a damn about anything but their mutual loathing for libs and non-white, non-Christian minorities. But here’s an exception. This man was once revered on the right on a level with Reagan himself:
Charles Fried was a fervent, superior officer on the frontlines of the Reagan Revolution. As solicitor general of the United States from 1985 to 1989, he urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the reining liberal orthodoxies of his day—on abortion, civil rights, executive power and constitutional interpretation.
But the Trump Revolution has proven a bridge too far. As he reveals in a scorching interview with Newsweek‘s Roger Parloff below, Fried has broken ranks.
He denounces a president who is “perhaps the most dishonest person to ever sit in the White House.” As disgusted as he is by President Donald Trump, Fried is, if possible, even more dismayed by William Barr, Trump’s current attorney general, for having stepped up as Trump’s chief apologist. Fried says of Barr. “His reputation is gone.”
Well, his good reputation anyway. His new reputation as the most unethical federal law enforcement leader since J. Edgar Hoover will follow him through history.
An excerpt of the interview:
The first thing, which sets the context, is the rhetoric of the president, both when he was running and ever since. The famous statement that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. The assumption he makes is that by virtue of the November election of 2016, he has a mandate to be the leader of the country. The commander in chief of the country. The German word is fuhrer. The Italian word is duce.
He talks about loyalty. He asks for loyalty. To what? To him personally. Not to the law, which he is supposed to be faithfully executing. This comes up over and over again. Where an official—for instance, the whistleblower—following the law, performing a legally defined duty, following a chain of command, does something that undermines Trump’s personal situation, he defines it as espionage, as sabotage. He looks back to the days when people could get shot for doing that.
Now, maybe if you think of a few occasions in our history—for instance, [President Franklin] Roosevelt’s landslide in 1936—there would have been some color for this view. Unnecessary, in that instance, because Congress and he were absolutely of one mind. But Trump’s opponent got 2.8 million more votes than he did. So there is no remarkable popular mandate to this man. He was constitutionally elected. Fine. What that means is, he has such powers as the Constitution gives him. And those are the executive powers.
As Justice Jackson said in the Steel Seizure Case, that term is not a “grant in bulk of all conceivable executive power.” It is only such executive powers as are specified.The principal one is “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The laws made by Congress. And to do so faithfully. Not trickily. Not underhandedly. Not by transferring [money from one budget to another] and calling emergencies—as with the building of the wall.
Read on … it’s really something. He says all the honorable people have left Trump’s cabinet and now he’s capable of doing serious damage. And more.
It’s really hard to overstate how important Charles Fried has been on the right. That he could be dismissed as a Never-Trump apostate is a perfect illustration of the meaninglessness of intellectual conservatism. in 2020.
It’s obvious that he’s contemplating some privatization plan that will benefit all his rich Wall Street buddies. I’ll bet some of them were in his ear at Davos, telling him all about the “profits” the US Treasury will make if it invests in the markets. Hey, he might even propose that the Trump Organization form a consortium to use Social Security funds to develop some cheap beachfront condos with his name on them to get himself a taste. And Republicans will probably go along with it.
But don’t be fooled. He will not run on it this year. He knows very well that his older, racist, white voters must be kept on the team and messing with their Social Security will scare them. But once he no longer has to face re-election, he will be setting up himself and his family with massive financial gains the minute he leaves office.
I have no doubt that privatizing Social Security would be a scam that he plans to get a piece of. He never leaves a penny on the sidewalk.
“If the Democrats are smart, they won’t put Jerry Nadler on the field again,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “He was so out of line. It’s offensive accusing us of a cover-up.”
“To my Democratic colleagues, you can say what you want about me, but I’m covering up nothing,” added Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally. “I’m exposing your hatred of the president.”
It’s funny that those are the two Senators quoted because they are both definitely helping Trump cover-up his crimes. Johnson is even involved in the crime itself, having gone to Trump to ask what the story was with the hold up of the aid to Ukraine and the president apparently lied to his face.
Graham has become such a groveling, servile, Trump boot-licker that he really would defend him if he shot someone on 5th Avenue.
This is typical of Republicans, however. They can dish it out but they can’t take it. The White House lawyers spent the whole day lying about the facts and trashing the House Democrats. The president routinely disparages Adam Schiff to such an extent that he routinely receives death threats. But call out the Republicans who had voted on a party line all day long to prevent any witnesses and documents in the president’s impeachment trial and they have a hissy fit.
Did it strike a nerve? Maybe. But frankly, I think they’re happy to be accused of a cover-up. They only care about their base and their base demands that they cover for their Dear Leader. It says they are doing the only job their voters care about.
And they do love to clutch their pearls and call for the smelling salts whenever they are called out for doing exactly what they are doing, pretending that they are offended and prompting the press and the Democrats to bend over backward to apologize and promise to never do it again. It’s a very old tactic.
I just want you to recall how polite Lindsey Graham was during last years Supreme Court hearing:
This “so what?” defense is an argument that even if Trump did everything he was accused of, something he and his supporters have regularly disputed from the start, it still wouldn’t reach the standard for removing a president from office. Why, if everything was perfectly innocent, did the administration’s defenders go to suchlengthsto claimthat Trumpdidn’t do what he was accused of? In The New York Times, Charlie Savage breaks down this circular line of argument, citing the shoddy constitutional basis for such a defense, especially around any claim that a criminal offense is required to meet the standard for impeachment, as the president’s defenders now insist.
It’s not a surprise that a number of Fox guests and hosts are finally vocalizing their belief that Trump is essentially above the law, nor will it be a surprise when the Republican-controlled Senate inevitably acquits him.
Reince Priebus: "Sometimes the best defense is the 'so-what' defense which is, if everything the Democrats said is true it's still not impeachable. If everything Lev Parnas said is true, it's still not impeachable" pic.twitter.com/hBMT3YvjqG
MCCARTHY: We used to have, and up until very recently, this has been the history of the United States, the expectation — which was the framers’ expectation — that from time to time, the chief executive would abuse his power, in the sense of either doing something that the Constitution didn’t permit, or somehow overdoing the powers that the Constitution gives to the president. And the expectation was not that you were going to jump every time that happened to impeachment. There are other ways that the Congress, either by political pressure or by using the power of the purse, would be able to rein in presidential excess. The idea was that, you know, there is a lot of area between something that is wrong and something that is impeachable. And I think that’s what we have lost in this equation.
Yeah. Trying to rig the election in your favor is just business as usual. No biggie.
Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera, January 17:
I look at this whole Ukrainegate. I say everything the Democrats have charged is true. I concede each and every allegation about trying to muscle the Ukrainian government into investigating the Bidens. I concede that. I concede that the call with Zelensky and President Trump was not appropriate. It was tacky and inappropriate. I concede all of that, and I come to “so what?” This does not state a case as demanded by Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States. This is not bribery. This is not treason. This is not a high crime or misdemeanor. This entire impeachment fails because it does not state what the Constitution requires.
Molloy’s piece goes on to take this argument apart and it’s worth reading because the president’s henchmen are obviously relying on it. She concludes:
In October, Trump’s lawyers made an extraordinary claim for presidential immunity from legal consequences, arguing that even if he actually stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot someone — as he said during the 2016 campaign — he couldn’t be charged with a crime while serving as president.
Lawyers often adopt questionable positions that ultimately amount to a belief that their client is above the law. When a media outlet does this — especially one that called for the impeachment of Obama at seemingly every opportunity — it’s an insult to the general public. Should Trump’s own legal team want to argue the “so what?” defense, that’s their prerogative, but news outlets have a responsibility not to play along. By defending Trump at all costs, Fox News is embracing its role as the president’s personal propaganda outlet.
We don’t call it Trump TV for nothing. They are indoctrinating their viewers into believing that Donald Trump is infallible. And their viewers are happy to believe it.
There are a lot of timelines of the Ukraine scandal out there but they are mostly quite hard to follow. This one put together by the Democrats is simple. If Republicans cared at all about anything but their own careers and their Dear Leader, they would be persuaded by that alone:
Early 2019
Trump and his allies willingly embrace Yuriy Lutsenko, who replaced Viktor Shokin as Ukraine’s top prosecutor, despite widespread agreement that Lutsenko was deeply corrupt.
Early 2019
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani partners with Lutsenko to dig up dirt on Trump’s political opponent and smear a U.S. ambassador who got in their way.
March 26-29
Giuliani and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak on the phone. Pompeo requests more information on Giuliani’s claims about the Bidens and Yovanovitch, which Giuliani provides in a nine-page document. Pompeo and Giuliani speak on the phone again the next day.
Late March/ Early April
Conservative writer John Solomon publishes several articles — facilitated by Giuliani — attacking Yovanovitch and Biden. Trump promotes the allegations in a tweet; they’re also amplified by Donald Trump Jr. and other Trump allies.
April 21
Zelensky was elected President of Ukraine in a surprise victory. This suddenly meant Lutsenko’s job was in danger. Trump and Giuliani shifted their focus to directly pressuring Zelensky.
May 1
News breaks about Giuliani’s efforts — on which he’s kept Trump in the loop — to push the Ukrainian government to open an investigation intended to help Trump win in 2020.
May 6
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who is widely respected in the national security community for her efforts to address corruption, is publicly forced out. The State Department had previously asked Yovanovitch to extend her tour until 2020.
May 9
Rudy Giuliani announces plans to travel to Kiev to push the Ukrainian government to open investigations that “will be very, very, helpful to my client” — Donald Trump. Giuliani admits that some could say the trip is “improper,” but says it’s not illegal because “we’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.”
May 10
Rudy Giuliani writes to Zelensky to request a meeting. He does so in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer and with Trump’s “knowledge and consent.”
Giuliani cancels his planned Kiev trip after an outcry.
Mid-May
More than two months before his July 25 phone call with Trump, Zelensky becomes concerned with how he would navigate pressure from Trump and Giuliani to investigate his political rival.
Mid-July
Trump tells acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to withhold almost $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. OMB officials pass the message on to the State Department and the Pentagon, saying that Trump has “concerns” and that the administration was looking at whether the spending was necessary. Administration officials are told to tell Congress that the delays are part of an “interagency process,” giving them no other information. State Department and Pentagon officials are “puzzled and alarmed” to learn of the hold on Ukrainian aid.
July 25
Trump speaks on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He repeatedly pressures Zelensky to work with Rudy Giuliani and, notably, Attorney General William Barr on an investigation that could be damaging to his political opponent.
July/August
Pentagon officials argue to the White House that the aid to Ukraine is effective, but are ignored. Pentagon officials become suspicious when other aid is released, but Ukraine aid is still held up. Staff from the State Department and Pentagon are stonewalled by OMB and contact offices of members of Congress. The Trump administration tells members of Congress variously that the administration was reviewing the Ukraine aid to make sure it was in the best interest of foreign policy or that there was a review on corruption in Ukraine.
Late July
The Pentagon warns the White House that if the aid wasn’t released in time, the Pentagon would likely be breaking the law — a warning the White House ignores.
August 12
An anonymous member of the intelligence community files a whistleblower complaint about Trump. Mick Mulvaney tries to schedule a call with Trump and top officials involved in the freeze, including Vought, Bolton, and Cipollone, but has trouble doing so because Trump has a scheduled golf game with professional golfer John Daly.
August 16
Bolton, with a memo saying the NSC, Pentagon, and State Department all want the aid released, personally asks Trump to release the aid. Trump refuses.
Mid-August
DOD raises concerns it may not be able to fully obligate DOD funds before the end of the fiscal year.
August 21
News breaks that Rudy Giuliani has been in communication with a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
August 26
Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson determines that the whistleblower complaint was an “urgent concern” and that it is credible. He sends the complaint to ODNI.
August 28
The aid freeze becomes public in a Politico article.
Late August
Bolton, Esper, and Pompeo meet with Trump in the Oval Office in an attempt to convince him that he should release the Ukraine aid. Trump replies that Ukraine is corrupt and refuses to release the money. Trump administration officials tell lawmakers that the aid to Ukraine is being held up because they are trying to gauge its effectiveness.
September 2
Statutory deadline for Acting DNI Joseph Maguire to forward the whistleblower complaint to Congress. He does not.
September 3
A bipartisan group of senators write a letter to acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney expressing “deep concern” about the administration’s withholding of the Ukraine military aid funds.
Early September
Sen. Rob Portman talks to Trump about the aid to Ukraine. Sen. Lindsey Graham tells the White House he plans to support a Durbin amendment to a defense spending bill that would block Pentagon spending to get the Ukraine funds released.
September 9
ICIG Atkinson writes to Reps. Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes disclosing the existence of a whistleblower complaint. The House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight committees open an investigation into whether Trump and Rudy Giuliani have been inappropriately using the American foreign policy process to pressure the Ukrainian government to help Trump’s reelection campaign. The House committees request documents including the transcript of and information about Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, any records relating to Giuliani and suspension of aid to Ukraine, and correspondence related to the Biden and Manafort matters.
September 10
Adam Schiff writes to Acting DNI Joseph Maguire demanding that he forward the whistleblower complaint as required by law.
September 11
Trump meets with Pence, Mulvaney, and Rob Portman to discuss the aid freeze. The White House releases the military assistance to Ukraine that it had been holding up. A senior Trump administration official won’t comment on the reason for the delay.
I usually eschew making this particular argument but I can’t resist. Imagine what the Republicans would say if you replaced the name Trump with Obama or Clinton. It boggles the mind.
And honestly, I don’t think the Democrats would defend them in lockstep. We know this because they all rushed to condemn Bill Clinton for his much less significant lying about his inappropriate personal behavior and would have happily censured him for it. If he’d done something like this at least half of them, if not many more, would have voted to remove.
Republicans count on the Democrats to be afraid of being seen as partisan hacks by their constituents (even if they are in many situations.) Republican shamelessness allows them much more room for rank partisanship.
When Trump says, “they don’t have the material,” he means not simply that the House doesn’t have the material. He means the Senate doesn’t have the material. He means the public doesn’t have the material. He’s boasting about his coverup. https://t.co/Lnt9HqHSqG
This is actually quite pertinent to one of the amendments that were voted down last night which would have prevented the president from cherry-picking only the evidence that is positive for his case if they end up allowing new evidence at the end of the trial. From what the president stupidly blurted out, I suspect that’s exactly what they plan to do.
This is interesting as well:
Trump’s whole answer on Bolton is pretty revealing. He says, in part, “You don't like people testifying when they didn't leave on good terms. And that was due to me, not due to him.” pic.twitter.com/UWVENTQ8bl
He says that Bolton knows about negative comments he’s made privately about foreign leaders. Since he has had no problem dissing virtually all of them in public I have to assume it’s one for whom he has never spoken a bad word that he’s concerned about: BFF Putin.
