One would imagine how exhausting a presidential campaign must be, and after winning a coveted major party nomination, most folks would appreciate a little downtime. You know, a day or two off to recharge the batteries. Yet Donald Trump is not a normal candidate, so he’s continuing business as usual. He can’t bear to let the Democratic convention steal the spotlight for a few days. Nope. Trump is gonna say even more outrageous things and possibly make his running mate, Mike Pence, realize that he’s made a yuge mistake.
On Tuesday morning, this definitely happened. Trump expressed — in very clear words — that he hopes Russia locates and releases all of Hillary Clinton’s emails if they’re the ones responsible for the leak. After this statement, Trump’s 2013 words on Edward Snowden came back to haunt him. The real estate mogul had labelled Snowden a “terrible threat, a traitor” who deserves a fate befitting of “the good old days.” Well, the backlash began immediately, and Trump tried to reframe the mess by saying the Russians should kindly “share” Clinton’s emails with the FBI.
If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2016
Trump campaign Senior Communications Advisor Jason Miller also chimed in.
3/7 To be clear, Mr. Trump did not call on, or invite, Russia or anyone else to hack Hillary Clinton’s e-mails today.
— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) July 27, 2016
Too late. Everyone already noticed that the Republican nominee was almost begging another nation — in fact, a super power that’s feeling mighty chilly — to interfere with the U.S. election. The full weight of this situation involves a presidential candidate wishing that a former secretary of state’s emails are in the wrong hands. Sad! Social media just spawned the #TreasonousTrump hashtag, but even before that happened, Twitter fired off some magnificent reactions. If Trump’s going to make requests from Russia, these folks have a few things they’d like to see happen too.
"Mr. Putin, tear down their firewall!"
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) July 27, 2016
Russia, if you're listening, can you get that Wu-Tang Clan album from that weird hedge fund guy? Thanks
— caroline mccarthy 🦝 (@caro) July 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/758341116240490496
https://twitter.com/BCAppelbaum/status/758350466296193024
https://twitter.com/thisisTomRiley/status/758350508943814657
https://twitter.com/Breznican/status/758339935040524288
Russia, if you're listening, you might also want to find his tax returns.
— Ben Greenman (@bengreenman) July 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/kylebuchanan/status/758336583183446016
Russia, if you could also retrieve my GrubHub password, I'd be super thankful.
— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) July 27, 2016
And here’s what much of the buzz concludes — if Trump’s essentially wishing ill will upon his own country before the election, what will he do after he wins? A reality star with a flair for intense drama will have his hands on red button, so perhaps Loretta Lynch is taking notes…
https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/758346831847911425