Paranoid US senator after visit to Moscow: Putin is evil, Russian govt is mafia

RFE/RL
Mon, 09 Jul 2018 16:02 UTC

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A U.S. senator who traveled to Russia with a Republican congressional delegation last week said President Vladimir Putin could not be trusted and likened dealing with Moscow to "dealing with the mafia."

Senator John Kennedy (Republican-Louisiana) also told reporters on July 9 that he warned the Russian government to "stop screwing with American elections."

Comment: Alpha-male fail: when you puff up your chest and warn your opponent to stop doing something they were never doing in the first place or else something bad will happen to them. Made famous by Australian Tony "I'm gonna shirtfront Putin!" Abbott.

Kennedy said the senators warned the Russians that if they interfere in U.S. midterm elections in November, lawmakers "will hit you with sanctions even harder than what we have right now."

Comment:

He said he told the Russians to "get out of eastern Ukraine and let them self-determine" and "to get out of Crimea and let Crimea self-determine."

Comment: Self-determination - we do not think that word means what Senator Kennedy thinks it means.

Kennedy added he also warned Moscow to "stop screwing around in Syria and help us settle the mess [and] do not allow Iran to get a foothold in southern Syria."

Comment: Kennedy just might be the stupidest man in the U.S. senate...

"Because if you do that, there's going to be another war," he added, speaking on Capitol Hill.

Kennedy and six other Republican senators and one House member traveled to Russia from June 30 to July 4, in a trip seen as a prelude to a summit between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, who are scheduled to meet in Helsinki on July 16.

Senators Kennedy and Richard Shelby of Alabama told CNN on June 22 that the trip was being arranged by the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Jon Huntsman. Kennedy said he hoped to meet with Putin, but that did not occur.

Conflicting reports have surfaced about the trip, which was criticized by Democrats for only involving Republicans and for allegedly not challenging Russia on its interference in U.S. elections and its actions in Ukraine, Syria, and elsewhere.

Senator Richard Shelby, who headed the delegation, said he told Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin that "I'm not here today to accuse Russia of this or that or so forth. I'm saying that we should all strive for a better relationship."

"We have a strained relationship, but we could have a better relationship between the U.S. and Russia because there's some common interests around the world that we could hopefully work together on," Shelby told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

'Dictator' Putin

Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov described the meetings as "one of the easiest ones in my life" and claimed the subject of election meddling was only brought up "in general form" and was quickly resolved.

However, Kennedy told reporters that the meetings were "cantankerous" at times and he described Lavrov as a "bully."

"There is no political philosophy in Russia. It's sort of like saying, what's the political philosophy of the mafia," Kennedy said.

"Their philosophy is money and power. That's the philosophy of Putin. He rules with an iron hand. He's a dictator," Kennedy said.

Comment: At least John McCain can blame PTSD or brain cancer for his Cold War flashbacks. What excuse does Kennedy have?

He said there is "no free press" in Russia and that there is a wide divide in wealth between the rich and ordinary citizens.

The Russian people "deserve better," he said.

Still, Kennedy said he did not have a problem with Trump meeting with Putin in the upcoming summit, although he added that he did not expect any major breakthroughs.

"You can't trust Putin," Kennedy said. "I think the best we can do is try to contain him."

Comment: Russian senator Vladimir Djabarov responded:

"Let this weigh on his conscience. If he really thought so, why did not he say this in Moscow, as he visited the Federation Council and the State Duma? Here he was making compliments very generously and spoke about his respect towards our country and people. But as soon as he left... he immediately attempted to smear dirt on the nation that gave him such a warm welcome," the deputy head of the upper house committee for international relations, Vladimir Djabarov, was quoted as saying by RBC.

Answer: because like so many U.S. politicians, Kennedy is a coward.

Senator Djabarov said it's likely that, as a result of the comments, Russian lawmakers would never meet with Senator Kennedy again, but he also downplayed the mafia comparison as unimportant. "His statement does not carry any serious message. Let us just think that it never happened," he said.

Vladimir Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday that the Kremlin views Senator Kennedy's position as a result of stereotypes that persist in the US, as well as the anti-Russia pressure constantly applied by certain parts of the US political establishment.

"We are not wearing pink glasses, we give ourselves a full account that the US political establishment is held hostage by stereotypes and tremendous internal anti-Russian pressure," Peskov told reporters. The official also noted that the US senator's words were difficult to understand without the particular context in which they were used.