The Cult of Trump by Steven Hassan

Author:Steven Hassan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2019-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

TRUMP VISITS MOSCOW

When Trump first visited Russia, Putin was a low-level KGB agent in Germany, trying to recruit assets. According to author Luke Harding, Trump’s first visit to Russia in 1987 was the result of just such a “fishing expedition.”19 Trump was invited to Moscow by the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Yuri Dubinin, at a time when the KGB was actively seeking recruits. It would be the first of several visits during which Trump was wined and dined—often under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

On September 2, 1987, not long after he returned from his first trip, Trump took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post, blasting American foreign policy.20 Framing it as an open letter, Trump made his case for “why America should stop paying to defend countries that can defend themselves”—a foreshadowing of his later critique, as president, of NATO. The following month, he gave what sounded like a campaign speech in New Hampshire, one that seemed more congruent with the Kremlin’s political goals than with America’s.21

Trump’s ties to Russia appear to have strengthened in the early 1990s. Two of his businesses, the Trump Taj Mahal casino and the Plaza Hotel, had gone bankrupt and the Trump Shuttle folded. He was massively in debt when Russian oligarchs, flush with cash, rescued him. “He could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything. It was all coming out of Russia. His involvement with Russia was deeper than he’s acknowledged,” writes Michael Hirsh in his article “How Russian Money Helped Save Trump’s Business” in Foreign Policy.22

Initially the bailout came in the form of real estate partnerships and the purchase of Trump condos. In the early 2000s, Trump began working with two Russians who would help him make his transformation “from builder to brander.” As Hirsh observes, by 2015, when he announced his candidacy, Trump was already “enmeshed in this mysterious overseas flow of capital.”23

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.