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It had to be one of the most stunning, alarming and yet unsurprising days in presidential history. I don't even know if there are still questions that need to be asked. Maybe we'll come up with some, once our distress levels come down to earth.
For weeks now, the expectation has been, the fear has been, that President Trump wrecks havoc at the NATO summit, berates and criticizes American allies, and then heads to Helsinki where he lavishes praise on Vladimir Putin without bringing up any of the issues he needs to be called out on, notably Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. And, surprise surprise, that is exactly what happened. Exactly as we expected. And yet, it happened in a way that still leaves us stunned and speechless.
The fact that Trump has thrown his lot with the autocratic leader of Russia and not his own intelligence agencies, that his response to accusations of Moscow meddling was an incomprehensible and incoherent rant about Hillary Clinton's email server ... it just leads us speechless. Between John McCain calling the post-summit press conference "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory” and former CIA director John Brennan calling it "nothing short of treasonous," it was a day of head shaking that led to the stunning realization -- certainly by what we were all seeing with our own eyes -- that the president of the United States was siding with the president of Russia.
It's no longer about Trump "crossing a line." There are no longer any lines to cross. But there may not be any consequences either. The questions that are being asked are nothing short of astonishing. Is Trump -- and I hold my breath here -- a "traitor," as some are suggesting? Is he really in Putin's pocket? And what if he is? What changes? Everything in Washington will return to normal. Cable news will be back to having the Kellyanne Conways and the Anthony Scaramuccis of the world to explain what is going on. Congress will go on with whatever it does.
And yet, even if nothing changes ... something significant happened in Helsinki. And it wasn't good.
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