Hysterical leftists are ignoring Trump’s deal making skills

THE US president was called a “lackey” after the Helsinki press conference, but behind the scenes he told Putin annexing Crimea was illegal. It sounds like robust discussion, writes Miranda Devine.

THE extraordinary press conference in Helsinki between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on Monday has sent Trump Derangement hysteria to new heights.

The Trump haters and Never-Trumpers are calling him a “treasonous traitor” who sold out to Russia.

“Trump shows the world he’s Putin’s lackey”, bellowed the New York Times.

“Trump, in sucking up to Putin, betrays his country”.

Senator John McCain, an anti-Trump Republican, called it “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naiveté, egotism, false equivalence and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate … a tragic mistake.”

Trump did seem uncharacteristically outclassed by Putin in the alpha dog swagger stakes, but even he knows when enough is enough. Putin’s one-upmanship games were comical, from showing up late to his insouciant elbow placement.

Putin is a gangster. He poisons people. His mercenaries shot down MH 17 and killed Australians. He’s not a nice guy, obviously. On the other hand, the world is a dangerous place and there are worse enemies. Like ISIS, al Qaeda, and the rest of the jihadist community that we seem to have forgotten to be frightened of.

Russia is a Christian country. It helped end the Syrian war. Against Islamic terrorism, Russia is on the same side as the US and its allies.

During the joint press conference in Helsinki, Russia's President Vladimir Putin offered a ball of the 2018 football World Cup to US President Donald Trump. (Pic: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP)

In at least one respect Trump is right. The Russia collusion narrative was set up by the Democrats and used by Hillary Clinton to try to explain why she didn’t win the 2016 US presidential election. Not that she was a terrible candidate, but that Trump cheated.

And while it’s clear Russia did try to meddle in the election, so far there is no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, or that there was any impact on the election outcome.

So, yes, Trump went to Europe and insulted the G8, NATO, Germany and the UK, and then he had a press conference in which he appeared to kowtowed to Putin.

Yes, he appeared to accept Putin’s “extremely strong and powerful” denial that Russia meddled in the election, over the verdict of his intelligence agencies that they did. Behind the scenes we know the leaders discussed Syria, Iran, North Korea, and Ukraine. We know Trump told Putin Russia’s annexation of Crimea was “illegal”, because Putin said so at the press conference. It sounds like it was a robust discussion.

Maybe Trump is the idiot the leftists say he is. But since they’re wrong about everything else, it’s probably wise to have a little faith in Trump’s deal making skills.

After all, as Winston Churchill once said, it’s better to “jaw-jaw” than “war-war”.

And, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told me today, Trump is not a traitor. “He’s a patriot”.