A Reality-Based Approach to the Trump-Putin Summit

FEATURING NORMAN SOLOMON – Ahead of the highly anticipated one-on-one summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki next week, political pundits and media analysts are making sweeping pronouncements. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey said on Wednesday that he was, “worried how the President will unfold” during the meeting. Menendez is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and added during his CNN interview that Russia is, “an adversary, from my view they’re a foe.”

Independent Senator Angus King echoed that sentiment on the same day, also on CNN saying that he was, “afraid that we’re playing into Putin’s hands.” He added that Putin, “views the western alliance as a threat and he wants to see it undermined. That’s their strategy.”

Now a letter signed onto by dozens of progressive academics, activists, and analysts such as Gloria Steinem, Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore is calling for calm in the midst of the anti-Russian hysteria. The letter is entitled, “Common Ground: For Secure Elections and True National Security.” One of the letter’s signatories Norman Solomon now joins me.

Sign the petition at RootsAction.org.

Norman Solomon, journalist with ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy, where he’s executive director. Norman is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death; and a co-founder of RootsAction.org.