Trumps Very Friendly Talk With Duterte Stuns Aides and Critics Alike

[spanone]

WASHINGTON — When President Trump called President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Saturday, the American leader’s national security aides saw it as part of a routine diplomatic outreach to Southeast Asian leaders. Mr. Trump, characteristically, had his own ideas.

During their “very friendly conversation,” the administration said in a late-night statement, Mr. Trump invited Mr. Duterte, an authoritarian leader accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines, to visit him at the White House.

Now, administration officials are bracing for an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups. Two senior officials said they expected the State Department and the National Se.curity Council, both of which were caught off guard by the invitation, to raise objections internally.

The White House disclosed the news on a day when Mr. Trump fired up his supporters at a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pa. The timing of the announcement — after a speech that was an angry, grievance-filled jeremiad — encapsulated this president after 100 days in office: still ready to say and do things that leave people, even on his staff, slack-jawed

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/trump-duterte.html

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. This invitation doesn't surprise me at all.

Those two "leaders" are cut from the same cloth.

They should get along wonderfully.

[Sculpin Beauregard]

2. Oh hey! I wonder why?

Link to tweet

[democratisphere]

3. Authoritarian dictators always like to get together for tea and chatter.

drumpf always coming up with more outrageous diversions to draw attention away from Russiagate.

[Laurian]

4. Trump doesn't know anything about Duterte. He's lazy and ignorant and

has no interest in learning. He's flying by the seat of his pants with regard to all foreign leaders and international affairs.

What's the phrase? Oh yeah, "we are so screwed".