CHICAGO — 270 Strategies Principal and former National Press Secretary for the Democratic National Committee, Hari Sevugan, joined CBSN last night to break down the latest political news heading into the inauguration of Donald Trump.
On Putin calling critics of Trump “fake news” and “worse than prostitutes” “I couldn’t think of a worse character witness than Vladimir Putin, but he continues to insist on supporting President-elect Trump, just as President-elect Trump continues to insist on supporting President Putin. It’s one of the great bromances of our time. But I think the credibility of Mr. Putin on some of these issues, whether he’s talking about fake news, where he’s got folks in Moldova, like teenage boys, sitting around creating fake news, and he’s killed journalists, and he has state news outlets. He’s talking about fake news — he just doesn’t have the credibility to talk about that.”
On Putin saying President Obama is trying to delegitimize President-elect Trump “I think that’s the farthest thing from the truth. The president has gone out of his way to be gracious and to insure a smooth transition for the President-elect. I think that he’s done that in the face of criticism from folks on the left. The president believes in democracy and wants to se a smooth transition of power. So, when I hear that, it flies against the face of the facts.”
On Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia “I don’t think Donald Trump is in a position to be tough on Russia. We’ve seen that he’s compromised in a lot of ways, whether it’s conflicts of interest or just this obsession he has with Mr. Putin. It’s clear that he’s not ready to be tough on Russia.”
On President Obama’s commutation of Private Chelsea Manning’s sentence “This President has prosecuted more cases of leaking government secrets than all other presidents combined. There’s no doubt that he’s been tough on these issues. He’s shown an act of mercy here with Private Manning and that’s what he’s done in using his clemency powers in a way that, I think, advanced his priorities. That said, an interesting thing here I think that not a lot of people are talking about is Julian Assange volunteered – and WikiLeaks volunteered – that Assange would allow himself to be extradited if Chelsea Manning’s sentence was commuted. And that’s a very important point that a lot of people are missing.”
On tax reform “That’s the border adjustments tax that Paul Ryan introduced, and was stymied there, he was stymied, his efforts, by the President-elect to do what has been a Republican priority for a long time, which is entitlement reform. I think what the House Caucus and Speaker Ryan are finding is that the President-elect is just as unpredictable with them as he is with the rest of the world. We’ll wait to see how that plays out, but certainly they are not aligned.”
On strategy for Democrats “I think that Democrats are going to be looking for ways they can advance their own agenda in the next four years and short of that, ensuring that we don’t take the country backwards by advancing Republican ideas that are going to have that effect. So, where those divisions exist, and Democrats can slow the train down, that’s what they’ll do – not unlike what Republicans have done.”
