Obama:
Who flipping cares what the Russians think about anything? All of this talk about them gaining power is nonsense. This is and always has been a second rate power.
It's a joke of a country and for the life of me I have never understood our blind spot towards Russia. Even during the Cold War we were giving them way way too much credit for the amount of missiles they had, the competence of their government and their society and how much capital they had to work with.
And now we're again the lion in the room worried about the hyena.
http://tigerboard.com/boards/view.php?message=11076865
Trump:
They can't be trusted and it's always been that way.
You don't know your history. We left them alone for much of the time after the Cold War. It was Bush that unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear treaty and the expansion of NATO, both at times where no action was necessary that set things on their current course.
In other words, action when it's not needed is the culprit. Russia has overstepped, however, shooting down an airliner of innocents, annexing Crimea and ****ing with Ukraine.
Now they are meddling in free elections here and elsewhere. Action needs to be taken or they will step things up. It's the Russian way.
http://tigerboard.com/boards/view.php?message=14900215