Outgoing National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster had some choice words for Russia -- and by obvious implication his own boss, Putin loyalist and con man Donald "Rump" Trump -- at last night's Atlantic Council's 100 Years of U.S.-Baltic Partnership. The leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were in Washington yesterday and were subjected to embarrassing lectures from an unraveling Rump on everything from Amazon to our NATO partners. Earlier that day, he also lied in front of the Baltic leaders that he was the toughest President on Russia, something they know is a bald faced lie. The salient quotes from McMaster's speech:
“For too long, some nations have looked the other way in the face of these threats. Russia brazenly, and implausibly denies its actions, and we have failed to impose sufficient costs...Mr. Putin may believe that he is winning [ed. -- spoiler alert: he is] in this new form of warfare. He may believe that his aggressive actions in Salisbury, in cyberspace, in the air and on the high seas can undermine our confidence, our institutions and our values. Perhaps he believes that our free nations are weak and will not respond to his provocations. He is wrong.” (emphasis added)We have two problems with McMaster's late public awakening: first, the timing. Now that he's on a greased rail out of Rump's Romper Room, he feels emboldened to speak, obviously trying to protect whatever reputation he has left after working there. This doesn't have the force of someone inside Rumpworld. Second, as long as Moscow has a frightened ally in the Oval Office, one who is eager to please them even at the costs of our national security, this tough talk will be viewed in Moscow as hot air from a has-been. In some comments several weeks ago, McMaster irritated Rump by saying that Russia's involvement in U.S. election meddling was "incontrovertible." The emotionally unstable Rump later "corrected" him by saying that it didn't influence the election results, something he has no proof of.
We'll have to wait to see if McMaster continues to speak forcefully about Russia's threat publicly in the months ahead.
