The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, ramped up to Defcon 1 after President Trump met with Vladimir Putin.
“I’m from Brooklyn,” the New York Democart said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “We learned one thing there, if we learned anything: when there’s a bully around, as Putin is, you show strength. But President Trump showed abject weakness. You know what that means? The bully will continue to take advantage of him. If President Trump was such an easy mark in Helsinki, President Putin will realize he’s an easy mark elsewhere.”
Yes, Schumer — had he been the one meeting with the Russian president and former KGB agent — would have been tougher.
Which makes it hilarious that a photo of Schumer smiling and eating doughnuts with Putin has re-emerged.
The two met in New York City in 2003, with Schumer welcoming the leader as Russian oil company Lukoil opened a gas station in Manhattan, NTK reports.
The AP photo shows Putin and Schumer smiling, with coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. The caption reads:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, enjoys a Krispy Kreme doughnut and coffee with Senator Charles Schumer from New York as Putin visits the first New York gas station of the Russian company Lukoil, Friday.
Schumer also said that day:
“When I showed the president of Russia a Krispy Kreme doughnut and he ate it and said it was good, that was one of the more surreal moments I’ve had in politics.”
In 2008, Schumer buddied up with Putin, writing in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal — headlined “Russia Can Be Part of the Answer on Iran” — that Putin could help in negotiations.
Twitter had a blast.
Even Trump had some fun.