President-elect and notorious Putinphile Donald Trump yesterday received the report from our intelligence agencies detailing why they believe the Russian government attempted to interfere with our election. And today he’s defending the Russians on Twitter:

Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only "stupid" people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

have enough problems around the world without yet another one. When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do now and…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

Trump makes a classic “false choice” logical fallacy here – mischaracterizing a debate as the choice between obviously good and and bad options instead of the actual opponents’ position. The issue is not whether we want good or bad relations with Russia, the issue is whether it’s worth ignoring election tampering in order to secure good relations.







Before that, he attacked Democrats:

Only reason the hacking of the poorly defended DNC is discussed is that the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

He might be right about that. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore a foreign power, especially one with a long history of malice towards America and Western Values, attempting to interfere with our elections. That’s another misdirection.

Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

This is a pretty stupid talking point that he has sent out to shameless surrogates. And it’s a strawman fallacy – presenting a different, easier to defeat argument in place of the opponent’s more difficult position. No one is arguing that the Russians literally hacked into voting machines. But that’s not the only way to interfere with an election. And it’s obviously absurd to pretend that it is. But his followers will push any absurdity as long as it supports the Donald.

Gross negligence by the Democratic National Committee allowed hacking to take place.The Republican National Committee had strong defense! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 7, 2017

This is actually just a straight out lie. One of the points the intelligence report made in support of its claim of Russian interference and preference for Trump is that they did not target Republicans for hacking, but only the Democrats. And yet, here is Trump literally saying the opposite, and misleading Americans, in order to protect his own political reputation. Better get used to that!!

Did anyone actually believe any report from the intelligence agencies would change his stubborn mind? I at least, did not.