President Donald Trump should say something to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election without conflating false accusations of collusion, former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Tuesday.
President Donald Trump should say something to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election without conflating “false accusations of collusion, ” former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Tuesday.
Instead, when Trump meets up with Putin at this weekend’s G-20 summit, it is a time where “you would actually show some strength in defending American values and not get tied down with the fact that there are political gains trying to be made at his expense, ” said Santorum.
Samantha Vinograd, a former senior adviser from the Obama administration, argued that all European leaders, as well as G-20 members are looking to the United States to bring itself out of an “acute national security crisis.”
“Right now the United States is distracted; there’s a lot of internal finger pointing, ” said Vinograd. “The United States needs to arrive in Hamburg and send a clear message that it will not tolerate direct attacks on U. S. soil against the United States and also send a message that the United States stands with its allies, stands with its partners in the face of national security issues like global terrorism, like Syria and Ukraine.”
Santorum said Trump will arrive in Hamburg with the United States being as respected as it was in some case, but in other cases, not as respecte.
“I think the fact that the president has been much more decisive in dealing with some of the enemies that we’re confronting than the previous administration I think has upped our status, ” he said. “I think a lot of the political turmoil that you see here in the United States has not helped this president. Obviously, I’m very much in favor of what the president did on the Paris accords, but that’s not possible among a lot of our allies in Europe in particular. It’s a mixed bag, but I think the fact that the president has been clear and more determined to confront our foes is actually a positive sign.”
Further, said Santorum, he does not believe climate change is a national security issue, as former President Barack Obama called it.
“I don’t think anybody really believes that climate is a national security issue, ” he said. “It may be an economic issue, it may be a political issue, but I think most folks are serious when you look at the threat of ISIS and you look at the threat of North Korea and Iran and other hot spots, those are national security issues and ones that this president I think is very focused on, appropriately.”
Further, several previous administrations had trouble with North Korea, Santorum said, but he believes Trump is showing resolve and making tougher statements than his predecessors would have made.
Instead, there was a lot of “pandering” to North Korea and its bloodlined regimes, including that of current leader Kim Jong Un.
“It seems like each generation is a little bit more progressive than the previous one, and we have to try something different because I don’t think we can stand on the sidelines and let this country, which is clearly not predictable, not stable, have a weapon that could actually hurt the United States, ” said Santorum.
