He’s selling out the country for personal gain … again
Brian Beutler points out in his fantastic newsletter today (subscribe here) that Trump’s extracurricular foreign policy activity is almost certainly in service of his election in November and suggests that the Democrats take this seriously:
President Biden may have reached his wits end, however belatedly, with Benjamin Netanyahu. A readout of their most recent conversation suggests that, in the wake of the World Central Kitchen killings, and the subsequent flight-to-safety of humanitarian workers, U.S. aid will be conditioned going forward on a rapidly implemented ceasefire (of uncertain length) in order to meliorate the catastrophe on the ground.
But Biden’s larger picture goal—and perhaps the only way to lastingly tie this Israeli government’s hands—is a grand settlement, along the lines he’s been negotiating, that would sweeten the deal for Israel by normalizing its relations with Saudi Arabia.
He should thus be alarmed at the news (if it is indeed news to him) that Trump has held at least one undisclosed phone call with Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, in recent days.
Trump has been strangely at pains of late to imply that he is at odds with the rest of his party, which lusts for bloody retribution against Palestinians. He recently told a duo of right-wing Israeli journalists, “You have to finish up your war,” and stressed the same thing to the Republican apparatchik Hugh Hewitt, insisting in his television-addled way that Israel is “absolutely losing the PR war.”
On its face, that suggests agreement with Biden. If we could ever take Trump at face value or trust his motives, his private contacts with MBS might not be so worrisome. There is speculation and reporting to suggest that Trump views Netanyahu as disloyal for having congratulated President Biden on winning the 2020 election—perhaps this is his retribution? And he may see some advantage in getting caught advocating for Israel to end its war, so that he might claim credit if a ceasefire materializes in the coming weeks.
But the clear optimum for him—what is in his best interest, the only interest he cares about—is to scuttle Biden’s efforts to reach a grand diplomatic settlement in the region. And between his secret conversations, his private business arrangements with Saudi royals, and his control over Republicans in Congress, he almost certainly has the clout required to subvert U.S. foreign policy in this way. Just as he’s subverted Biden’s Ukraine policy and border-security negotiations for personal gain.
He’s also not necessarily working alone. We learned this week that Netanyahu hosted Jared Kushner for dinner in December, and that Trump treats his degenerate former national-security henchman Richard Grenell as an “envoy” to right-wing leaders abroad.
What’s more likely: that Trump is Biden’s earnest partner seeking an end to the war in Gaza? Or that he would like to create that impression domestically, while working behind the scenes to prolong it? Biden shouldn’t just wonder if Trump and his lackeys are collectively up to no good. He should suspect it. And insofar as he has access to information that confirms his suspicion, he should reveal it to the American public.
This is not unprecedented. Trump’s spirit animal, Richard Nixon, did this in 1968:
On Oct. 31, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam in hopes of encouraging peace talks to end the Vietnam War. At the time, Johnson knew a secret. Some in the Nixon campaign were secretly communicating with the South Vietnamese Government in an effort to delay the opening of the peace talks. They offered the prospect of a better deal for South Vietnam if Nixon became president.
One of the most visible intermediaries between the Nixon campaign and the South Vietnamese was Anna Chennault. Chennault was a Chinese-born Republican fundraiser and widow of U.S. Major General Claire Chennault, who led the World War II Flying Tigers.
When he learned of the back-channel communications, President Johnson called the effort “treason.” However, he never made the information public, fearing damaging the presidency as well as having to admit that he used government agencies to spy on Chennault and the South Vietnamese. In addition, Nixon denied involvement in the efforts.
The White House file on the matter was maintained by National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, and he kept it after leaving the White House. In 1973, after Johnson’s death, Rostow gave the sealed package to the director of the LBJ Presidential Library. Under the plain outer wrapping, a letter-size envelope was taped to the large inner envelope. Written on the small envelope was “the ‘X’ envelope,” so it became known as the X-File or X-envelope.
At the time the file was kept secret, to be opened 50 years later. However, the LBJ Library opened it in 1994 and released some related telephone conversations in 2008. Some of the documents remain classified.
There’s plenty of evidence that Reagan did the same thing with the Iran hostages in 1980. This is something that Republicans have been doing for half a century and Donald Trump is far likelier to do it than they were — he needs a lot of money on top of election help. (Also he’s a corrupt criminal.)
Biden should listen to party wisemen like Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin, and liberal gadflies like me, and let the public know what the government knows about Trump’s betrayals in real time. As Raskin told the New Republic’s Greg Sargent this week, “It would be good to know if we could fill in the blanks in terms of the very specific commitments that he’s making right now. And he has emissaries who are traveling all over the world making common cause with right-wing governments. And those people are doing everything they can to try to make Donald Trump look good.”
I hope they do it but I’m not confident they will. But if there’s ever been a necessity to stop this behavior it’s now. The man is currently under indictment for stealing classified documents, including nuclear secrets, and he’s desperate. This can’t be swept under the rug.