[guest post by Dana]

This should be surprising or shocking, but isn’t. Instead, it’s completely expected, and shameful:

Donald Trump has issued his intermittent reminder that he trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin more than intelligence agencies for the government he once led.

The former president posted on his Truth Social platform Monday criticizing U.S. intelligence officials as “misfits” and “lowlifes” while sharing an article about Chris McGonigal, who led the FBI’s New York counterintelligence division before his 2018 retirement. McGonigal was arrested earlier this month over his alleged ties to a Russian oligarch and other charges, including money laundering.

In the post, Trump recalled the 2018 Helsinki summit where he infamously sided with Putin over U.S. intelligence when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A look back at Trump’s admiration for Putin (and for himself):

Speaking on the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show in February 2022, Trump described Putin’s tactic of recognizing two self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine and sending Russian troops to the regions under the guise of “peacekeeping operations” as “genius” and “very savvy.”

Trump doubled down on his praise of the Russian president, telling a crowd at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that Putin was “pretty smart” as he had “taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions” just as the invasion of Ukraine was being carried out.

Trump has also repeatedly claimed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he was still president, and would be able to end it now if he was in office.

“My personality kept us out of war,” Trump said at the New Hampshire Republican State Committee’s annual meeting in Salem on Saturday, January 28…”And I told you before, [it] would have never happened with Russia. Putin would have never ever gone in. And even now I could solve that in 24 hours. It’s so horrible what happened. Those cities are demolished now.”

You can read much more here.

How is this not traitorous? And this guy wants to become the next President of the United States…

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

His statement alone reminds to me why America needs him (and people like him) in the Senate:

After what I hope was adequate reflection, I’ve decided not to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate,” Daniels told POLITICO. “With full credit and respect for the institution and those serving in it, I conclude that it’s just not the job for me, not the town for me, and not the life I want to live at this point.”

“Maybe I can find ways to contribute that do not involve holding elective office. If not, there is so much more to life,” he said. “People obsessed with politics or driven by personal ambition sometimes have difficulty understanding those who are neither. I hope to be understood as a citizen and patriot who thought seriously, but not tediously, about how to be deserving of those labels and simply decided the U.S. Senate was not the only way.”

–Dana