The U.S. and Russia are engaged in a ‘new Cold War’ and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, in conjunction with much of the U.S. media, are actively misinterpreting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s view on the escalating situation, according to one of America’s top experts on Russia.
“That reckless branding of Trump as a Russian agent, most of it is coming from the Clinton campaign,” said Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton, on CNN’s Smerconish Saturday.
Cohen that the Clinton campaign is intentionally misinterpreting Trump’s views on U.S. policy towards Russia in an attempt to brand him as a Russian “Manchurian Candidate.” Trump has argued that as president he would seek an easing of hostilities with Russia, as opposed to Clinton who would escalate tensions with an already aggressive Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has even gone as far as to suggest that he would consider allowing Crimea, which was forcibly and illegally seized by Russia in 2014, to remain under Putin’s control.
“I’m going to take a look at it,” Trump told CNN’s George Stephanopoulos during an Sunday. “But you know, the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that, also … just so you understand, that was done under Obama’s administration.”
Cohen has been referred to by Newsday columnist Cathy Young as Putin’s . Cohen was also a “” of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, and is married to Katrina Vanden Heuvel, part owner of The Nation magazine and in the West. In his own work, Cohen has for reframing what appears to other experts as Kremlin aggression.
Cohen claimed that Trump is simply offering a differing point of view on the U.S. relationship with Russia, one that stands in stark contrast with that he says is the aggressive status quo.
“We’re approaching a Cuban Missile Crisis level nuclear confrontation with Russia,” he noted. “And there is absolutely no discussion, no debate, about this in the American media.”
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