jules witcover

WASHINGTON — If the long postwar rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union was called the Cold War, maybe we should label the current lovefest President Donald Trump is conducting with Russian President Vladimir Putin the Warm War.

At a time when Trump’s Justice Department is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election that put him in the Oval Office, he has sent his Moscow counterpart congratulations on his election to a new six-year term, in what he called “a very good call.” He added: “We’ll probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future,” with no mention whatever of the election interference unanimously confirmed by the American intelligence community.

The Washington Post has reported that Trump conveyed his best wishes to Putin despite a specific White House staff briefing paper urging him “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” Putin on his re-election, which he accomplished with 76 percent of the vote.

For once there was some Republican congressional pushback, with Arizona Sen. John McCain tweeting: “An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by so doing with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election.”

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch Connell brushed off the incident, saying: “The president can call whomever he chooses. When I look at a Russian election, what I see is a lack of credibility in tallying the results. … Calling him wouldn’t be high on my list.”

Retiring Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agreed. Corker’s earlier criticism of Trump recently has seemed to be waning. “I wouldn’t read much into it,” he said of the congratulations.

At the White House, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump, alluding to the most recent sanctions imposed on the Russians, “particularly when it comes to areas that we felt they’ve stepped out of place” on economic matters.

Asked for comment on McCain’s remarks, she said: “We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate. What we do know is that Putin has been elected in their country,” about which America had no voice in the outcome. “We can only focus on the freeness and fairness of our own elections … which we 100 percent fully support.”

Sanders again acknowledged the president’s irritation at Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation, saying “to pretend like going through this absurd process for over a year would not being frustrating seems little bit ridiculous.”

The report on the Trump-Putin conversation also made no mention whether Trump raised the matter of the British government’s allegation that a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent.

Moscow has denied involvement, but British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in the incident.

Trump’s relative reticence toward Putin’s behavior beyond his repeated praise and insistence that he will deliver an improved relationship between the United States and Russia has mystified and perplexed many establishment Republicans in Congress. They have remained committed to a post-Cold War policy of watchful suspicion toward the Kremlin.

Trump reported he did remind Putin that the United States is committed to spend $700 billion to beef up the American military, declaring “we will never allow anybody to have even close to what we have.”

Meanwhile, however, his repeatedly cozying up to Putin in the face of Russia’s aggressive efforts to undermine our democratic process cannot be tolerated.

Trump’s essentially hands-off attitude toward Russian acts of political subversion against the nation he has sworn to defend seems as serious as any allegations of obstruction of justice or abuse of power that may come out of the Mueller investigation.

Editor’s note: Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.