Trump and Putin to meet one on one, without aides or interpreters

[louis c]

I posted a joke that Trump and Putin would have a conjugal meeting in Finland by telling their interpreters to leave.

As it turns out, in a July 3 article in the Washington Examiner about a CNN report, there won't even be interpreters in the room. They will be alone.

Trump doesn't understand a word of Russian and I don't believe Putin is at all fluent in English.

What the fuck will they be doing alone?

<snip>Both presidents have previously spoken in-person, but the Finland meeting will be the first without interpreters or top diplomats in attendance, CNN reports.

The meeting is the first formal summit between the U.S. and Russia since Trump took office a year and a half ago. Because other officials will not be in the room for the one-on-one, there will not be a formal record of what they discuss.<snip>

Link to full article:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-putin-will-forego-translators-aides-for-one-on-one-meeting-at-start-of-finland-summit-report

[nature-lover]

1. Is this even done with our allies?

[Agschmid]

2. Putin is able to speak English.

http://www.newsweek.com/does-putin-speak-english-kremlin-634048

[emulatorloo]

4. +1

[NY_20th]

5. Trump did this with Kim as well.

Kim apparently speaks English, too.

[underpants]

3. Job evaluations with your boss can be tough.

[spanone]

6. putin will be recording it.

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. ..or clothing.

[librechik]

9. man, your mind works just like mine

only ONE reason they should be totally alone.

FELLATION.

[genxlib]

8. Then the Russian owned media

Will spin the meeting any way they want to.

You know the players; Pravda, Russia Today, FOX news.

Aside from being a terribly undemocratic, it is a dumb idea. They can play him like a banjo and he has no way to refute anything they say.

[Runningdawg]

10. Who was having a breath mint as they were leaving the room?

[eleny]

11. He should pay all expenses himself since he's obviously not going to be doing the people's business

[lamsmy]

12. Protocols exist for a reason

In nearly high-level meeting between two countries, certain procedures and staffing are considered not just normal but essential.

1. Agenda. An agenda is agreed upon in advance. Key sides with indepth knowledge of the issues on the agenda can than either prep their representative or be on hand to advise during the meeting. Nobody wants to be caught off guard. Representatives attending a meeting where other issues are raised without warning have every right to walk out.
2. Translators. This should go without saying: your negotiators need to know precisely what is said by all parties, and they need to know their people have passed strenuous security vetting. Relying on an adversary's translate to always give the whole truth is insane.
3. Note-takers. In some ways, these are the most important people in the room. They take short hand notes of every thing that is said (audio recordings are rarely allowed.) Afterwards (within hours), they write a summary and the two sides exchange summaries. They then put together a joint statement which will be released to the public. Both sides have to sign off on the joint statement before it's release.

All this is tedious and time-consuming but these protocols exist for very good reason. Even in business today, it is standard operating procedure to follow up high level meetings with summary exchanges just so that all parties understand if they are on the same page. In diplomacy, these protocols can prevent misunderstandings with dire consequences.

This much is clear, anyone who thinks they can go into serious diplomatic talks solo is a complete fool. Trump could tell Putin to stop messing with the Ukraine, then Putin's people could claim that Trump agreed to let Russia control the Ukraine. Trump has zero witnesses while Putin had at least three.

Make no mistake. State Department, Department of Defence, and National Security experts would have told Trump in no uncertain terms that going into a meeting like this on your own is hugely risky. And every Trump-Russian meeting or phone to date has led to leaks on the Russian side that only serve to embarrass Trump.

There is simply no logical explanation for Trump to want to go into a meeting with Putinon his own.

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. "The language of love needs no interpreter." -Somebody

(I haven't the foggiest idea who said it, but it sounds like the kind of thing that somebody did. Probably Shakespeare, as quoted in Reader's Digest.)