Trump Told Putin 'I'll Win' if Russia Starts Arms Race

President Donald Trump’s national security advisers spent months trying to convince him to sign off on a plan to supply new U.S. weapons to Ukraine to aid in the country’s fight against Russian-backed separatists, according to multiple senior administration officials.Yet when the president finally authorized the major policy shift, he told his aides not to publicly tout his decision, officials told NBC News. Doing so, Trump argued, might agitate Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the officials. Coronado Mayor Responds to Radio Host’s ‘Insensitive’ Tweet “He doesn’t want us to bring it up,” one White House official said. “It is not something he wants to talk about.”Officials said the increasingly puzzling divide between Trump’s policy decisions and public posture on Russia stems from his continued hope for warmer relations with Putin and stubborn refusal to be seen as appeasing the media or critics who question his silence or kind words for the Russian leader. Critics have suggested Trump’s soft approach to Putin has nefarious roots that are somehow entwined with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the federal investigation into whether the president’s campaign colluded in that effort, something the president has repeatedly denied. ‘I Never Saw His Face:’ Officer in Granite Hills HS Shooting Behind the scenes, Trump has only recently taken a sharper tone on Putin, administration officials said, but even then the shift seems more a reaction to the Russian leader challenging the president’s strength than a new belief that he’s an adversary. Putin’s claim earlier this month that Russia has new nuclear-capable weapons that could hit the U.S., a threat he underscored with video simulating an attack, “really got under the president’s skin,” one official said.Two officials said Trump told Putin during a phone call last week: “If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I’ll win.”  ‘Dangerous’ Rescue After 1 Killed in SR-78 DUI Crash: CHP Photo Credit: Evan Vucci/AP, File
Source: NBC San Diego