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A newly resurfaced 2014 Donald Trump appearance on Fox and Friends is making the rounds, although one has to fast-forward to the 4:00 mark to see the goods. Sarah Kendzior, a writer for Globe and Mail and The Guardian, urged her followers to watch the clip for evidence of Trump’s revealing statements about Russia. Indeed, his bombastic words do raise questions, although this probably isn’t the smoking gun that some people think they see.
There’s already plenty of evidence to suggest that Trump’s love of Russia runs deep, and some pretty solid reports suggest that the Kremlin cultivated him as a candidate for years. Vladimir Putin was absolutely thrilled with his victory, but folks sometimes grab onto the “holy sh*t” factor on Trump-Russia tidbits that don’t prove much. So, what does this video tell us?
This interview happened when people were mocking the Sochi Olympics. Trump thought Americans should maybe “give the Russians a little leeway” instead of making fun of everything, and “then we wonder why they don’t like us.” Trump discusses how he visited Russia for the Miss Universe pageant, and Putin called him on the phone and “was so nice,” but that he knows “for a fact” that Putin wasn’t happy about all the Sochi remarks. Trump felt that the opening ceremony was beautiful and reflected all the money and work that Russia put into the event. He then declared, “We should give them the benefit of the doubt, and then go on and win something important later on, because they’re not going to be so opposed to what we’re doing.”
Well, Trump was talking about the Olympics, but some folks are taking the “go on and win something important later on” as an allusion to his election victory. Seems like a stretch, but everything is open for interpretation, and like most things involving Trump, more questions exist than answers.