“Trump Refuses to Condemn Russia over Poisoning,” BBC headlined its wire yesterday complaining about President Trump’s audacity in insisting that the U.S. would review NATO and Germany’s “proof beyond doubt” that Russian dissident Alexi Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, in order to reach its own assessment.
The White House transcript of Trump’s remarks in his Friday evening press conference makes clear why the British are so-hysterical. In answering several questions about the alleged Navalny poisoning, Trump insisted on the importance of the non-proliferation treaty he is working on with Putin, and the potential to achieve it:
“With Russia, we’re right now negotiating a nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which is very important. It’s a very important thing. To me, it’s the most important thing. Some people say `global warming;’ I don’t. I say this is far more important. And we are the biggest; they are the second biggest, nuclear-wise. China is third. They’re actually a distant third, but they’re building pretty rapidly. And at some point, we’ll include China into those talks, but we’re doing very well with Russia on nuclear nonproliferation.”
And again a bit later, after again reviewing how tough he had been on Russia:
