Very dangerous....

Trump faults Congress for ‘very dangerous’ relationship with Russia

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

President Donald Trump blamed Congress on Thursday for deteriorating America’s relationship with Russia to what he deemed is an “all-time” and “very dangerous low.”

“Our relationship with Russia is at an all-time & very dangerous low,” the president tweeted Thursday morning. “You can thank Congress, the same people that can't even give us HCare!”

The president hit Congress twice in one tweet, faulting lawmakers for sending a bill to his desk that sanctions Russia for meddling in the 2016 election and slamming Senate Republicans yet again for failing to pass legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The House and Senate passed the Russia sanctions bill with overwhelming majorities. The legislation also limits the president’s authority to lift sanctions without congressional approval and sanctions Iran and North Korea as well.

Trump signed the bill on Wednesday “for the sake of national unity” but blasted the legislation and lawmakers in a pair of signing statements. The president said the “flawed bill” has “a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions.”

He said he supports stringent measures “to punish and deter bad behavior by the rogue regimes in” Iran and North Korea but notably omitted Russia. But he did express support for “making clear that America will not tolerate interference in our democratic process, and that we will side with our allies and friends against Russian subversion and destabilization.”

Even so, “the bill remains seriously flawed,” he continued, “because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate. Congress could not even negotiate a health care bill after seven years of talking.”

“I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars,” Trump said in closing. “That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) advised Trump to “thank Russian dictator Putin, who hacked US election, undermines Western alliances, invaded Ukraine & annexed Crimea,” not Congress.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who has emerged as a frequent Trump critic, mocked Trump for attacking Congress “instead of the nation that hacked us.”

“Putin must be pleased you joined the blame America crowd,” he tweeted.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Trump’s signing will end any hopes of improving relations with the U.S. and declare “a full-fledged economic war with Russia.”

“[T]he Trump administration has shown its total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way. This changes the power balance in the US political circles,” Medvedev wrote in a Facebook post.

He suggested that the so-called establishment approved sanctions “to knock Trump down a peg” and predicted lawmakers will take steps “to remove him from power.”

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said Tuesday that Trump was likely to sign the bill, “and then we’ll just work with it.” He said he has told Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on multiple occasions, “The situation’s bad, but believe me, it can get worse.”

“And it just did,” he told reporters Tuesday.

Putin has denied that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, despite the intelligence community’s assessment that the Kremlin interfered to boost Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. And the Kremlin responded Sunday to Obama-era actions against Moscow, which included seizure of two Russian compounds in the U.S. and the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, by ordering a 755-person reduction in U.S. diplomatic staff.

The Russia narrative has dominated Trump’s entire presidency, even engulfing some of his top aides and family members. But the president has repeatedly dismissed it as a “witch hunt” and a “hoax” created by the Democrats over their unexpected loss at the top of the ticket in November.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is leading an investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Moscow during the campaign, as well as possible obstruction from the president, who in May fired the FBI director leading the probe after reportedly requesting his loyalty. Congressional panels are also probing Russia’s role in the 2016 election.