President Donald Trump has demonstrated several times that he has no problem repeating Russian talking points about many issues, and last week, he did it again.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared to defend the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 during a Cabinet meeting.
“The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia,” Trump said. “They were right to be there.”
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The Russian invasion of the Middle Eastern nation sparked the Soviet-Afghan War, which lasted nearly ten years until 1989.
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC commented on Trump’s statement about the historical event on her show Thursday.
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“You may not care at all why the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979,” said Maddow. “But the president randomly volunteering that analytical take on that matter yesterday, ought to pique your interest.”
She continued: “That view does not exist in nature in this country. No one — no liberal or conservative, no contrary, out-of-the-box foreign policy thinker — holds the belief in American politics, academia, media or fantasy football chatrooms [that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a good thing].”
Trump has repeatedly showed more trust in the Russian government than in U.S. intelligence agencies. Perhaps the most prominent example of this came during the press conference following his infamous one-on-one summit with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last July. Trump said he believed Putin when he claimed Russia did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, despite many intelligence organizations and other groups finding evidence to the contrary.
Maddow also replayed last week a clip of Trump shoving Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic during the NATO summit in May 2017. Maddow then showed the headline of a Newsweek article from July 2018 that read “Russian Military Spies Backed Attempt to Assassinate Leader of Montenegro, Report Says.” Maddow explains that the main point of this coup was to attempt to stop the Baltic country from joining NATO.
The MSNBC host then showed a video of Trump speaking of Montenegro in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
“Montenegro has very strong and aggressive people,” Trump told Carlson. “They may get aggressive and [then] congratulations, you’re in World War III.”
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