And yet you keep defending the real stupidity.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is what his supporters and defenders are suffering from. You’ve got it backwards.
How else do you explain how many of his supporters do not believe that Don Jr. went to that meeting with the Russians when he actually openly admits going to the meeting?
Denying reality the way Trump supporters do is what is deranged.
As long as people could see them, I guess it’s no big deal that nobody could hear what they were telling each other.
Indeed.
It’s not like Trump is keeping secrets from everyone. He let Russian government officials hear what he had to say. It’s only the American government he’s keeping secrets from.
But you’re okay with that.
If someone releases audio of Trump’s conversation with Putin, I think everyone will be happy.
For the purposes of my question, I gave Trump the benefit of the doubt (which he hasn’t earned, mind you) that it is 100% on the up and up. If that’s the case, knowing the optics you would have to be incredibly stupid to have this meeting the way he did.
Assuming that Trump has a modicum of intelligence that having a personal meeting with no other Americans around is going to look really, really bad, it is logical to assume that the meeting, and its associated secrecy, was very important.
Similar to hiding tax returns, the only reason to do it is if releasing them is even worse. Trump needed to say something in secret to Putin, and he was willing to risk the terrible optics to do it.
Does your cite say that they left the dinner for an hour to have a meeting?
FCOL can’t you read? No, they didn’t. It was right there, at the table.
Well, if it wasn’t secret, howcum we don’t know what they talked about? I’d sure like to know, sure most folks here would like to know, but we don’t. Because he won’t tell us. But that’s not “secret”? Well, is it “Secret Lite”?
What “secrecy”? It was at a dinner table. In full view of all the G20 leaders and their photographers. There was no one from the US at the dinner other than Trump, Melania and Trump’s Japanese interpreter. Should he have invited that interpreter to his conversation with Putin?
This whole thing is a perfect example of just how deep Trump Derangement Syndrome goes.
OK, it wasn’t secret, and you know all about what they said! Great!
Tell us.
No. Nor does it say they were sitting at the table. 
Ok. So your cite doesn’t support your claim. Fair enough.
(I know that we’re outraged, but I can’t even figure out what was alleged to have happened).
Just being facetious.
Mr. Bremmer up there can help with the rest.
(my bold)
This is basically right up to the line. If you’re going to call something stupid, you should be very careful the target to whom you are directing that towards.
This however, is over the line. This is a warning for personal insults given the construction in post #1322.
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Knock it off. Focus on the political issues and the political participants, not the motivations of other posters.
This too. Same comment as above.
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As a general comment, at 1400+ posts, I’m not inclined to move the thread to the Pit especially given the omnibus Trump threads there. I think this is a worthwhile topic that can be discussed within the guidelines of this forum so I want to leave it open. Please observe forum rules.
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Yeah, he probably should have invited more people over, including the press. The controversy is that he is Putin’s pawn, and going over to him like that helps remove any doubt. What was so important that he just had to go over and talk to Putin of all people? If he just wanted to chat with someone to pass the time, why not one of the other attendees at the meeting? He could have made this a nothingburger by inviting a few more people over who could corroborate that it was nothing more than party chit-chat.