Rather than holding a press conference before leaving Hamburg, President Trump opted to update the American people about his meetings at the G20 summit with a Sunday-morning tweetstorm. None of his terse and oddly punctuated tweets were very reassuring, but people found one point particularly alarming:
As Politico notes, there were efforts during the last two administrations to communicate with Russia about fighting cybercrime, but they all failed. And even Republicans had to admit that if you think Russia might have hacked your election, working with Russia to stop cyberthreats isn’t a great plan.
“It’s not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it’s pretty close,” Senator Lindsey Graham said on Meet the Press. Fellow Republican senators John McCain and Marco Rubio agreed:
Republican representative Adam Kinzinger rejected the idea with a cute GIF:
And Democratic representative Brendan Boyle said he would introduce legislation this week that would “make sure, in absolutely no shape or form, we spend taxpayer money on this crazy and dangerous idea.”
But that won’t be necessary. On Sunday night, Trump explained that just because he and Putin talked about “forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” doesn’t mean he thinks they’re capable of doing it.
So why did Trump announce that he and Putin wasted time talking about a dumb and controversial plan that even his thinks is impossible? Hey, look over there — it’s a cease-fire in Syria!
