Watch: Dem Rep Blames Trump for Death of Putin's Opponent Alexei Navalny, Says He Gave Russia 'Green Light' to Do 'Crazy Stuff'
How low can Ted Lieu go?
The radical Democrat from California has a record of hating former President Donald Trump that’s impressive even for a leftist that keeps him familiar to fans of MSNBC and the like.
But his take on the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was a new nadir.
In an interview Saturday on MSNBC’s “Alex Witt Reports,” Lieu tried to make the case that the Novalney death could somehow be blamed on Trump.
And he started with Trump’s comments from a South Carolina campaign stop last week when the former president emphasized, as The Hill reported, that NATO allies need to keep up their mandatory spending on national defense or the United States, under Trump, would not feel obligated to defend them from a Russian attack.
Trump said he would not only use the American military to defend a NATO ally who failed to devote at least 2 percent of its GDP to national defense (which is most of NATO, according to Reuters), but that he would actually encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want.”
“You gotta pay your bills,” he said.
Now, a normal person would understand that the idea of an American president telling Russia to “do whatever they hell they want” to longtime allies comes under the heading of hyperbole. A normal person who follows the news might even remember a few years back when then-President Trump’s confrontational approach about NATO members not fulfilling their obligations actually spurred then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel to change her tune on the topic.
But Lieu, a fifth-term congressman who was a prosecution manager for the 2021 Democratic impeachment of Trump, is apparently not normal. His memory of the Trump presidency is probably cherry-picked to leave out everything but “Russia collusion” and “impeachment.” (Even on “Russia collusion” Lieu was from the grassy-knoll wing of his party when it came to conspiracy theories.)
So, it’s almost to be expected that Lieu has no problem interpreting Trump’s call for NATO members to do their part as a dog whistle to tell Putin that Trump was A-OK with Russia killing a dissident.
Check out Lieu’s appearance here:
OF COURSE! Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) claims TRUMP is responsible for the death of Alexei Navalny pic.twitter.com/QlVS01At1j
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 18, 2024
“Why did Navalny all of a sudden die at this point in time?” Lieu asked.
“I first of all, agree with President Biden that Russia is responsible for his death. Also, what happened in a few days leading up to his death? Well, we had former President Donald Trump essentially say that Russia should attack European countries.
“That is crazy. That is traitorous language. Russia certainly was listening, and I think they thought, hey, we now have a green light to do all sorts of crazy stuff.”
First of all, let’s stipulate that Biden and Lieu are right about Russia being to blame for the death. (Stopped clocks and Democrats are right once in a while.)
And let’s leave aside the fact Lieu’s weird idea of what “traitorous” means. (Not wanting to lay down American lives and treasure for European socialist freeloaders apparently qualifies.)
What’s really astounding here is that Lieu is actually claiming that Vladimir Putin, an utterly ruthless dictator whose opponents have an astonishing habit of ending up deceased in various way, a man who first took the helm of Russia when Bill Clinton was still president, was looking to a former president of the United States for permission on when to get rid of a troublesome prisoner. Only a true victim of Trump Derangement Syndrome could come up with that.
More likely, Putin has long ago sized up President Joe Biden as an international weakling — whose three years in office so far have established a global reputation for cravenness, from his surrender of the southern border immediately upon taking office to his surrender of Afghanistan in August 2021, to his effectively greenlighting the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to his backstabbing Israel during its war of existence against Hamas today.
With that in mind, he did away with Navalny when he chose to, for his own reasons, and knowing full well that his country would suffer no consequences — at least not from the Biden administration.
Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows the doddering, almost certainly corrupt husk of a president in the White House is a symbol of weakness for the world to see — physically, intellectually and morally.
Ted Lieu has both eyes and ears and, presumably at least reads headlines on his Facebook feed, so he knows it, too.
Yet he has no problem heading to the friendly confines of MSNBC to offer a spin on the death of one of the world’s most prominent dissidents that panders shamelessly to progressive political needs of the moment.
It’s a perfect picture of the Democratic Party in 2024: Unserious, finger-shallow, and utterly undeserving of power in the greatest nation the world has ever seen.
And as November gets closer, it’s only going to go lower.
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