It sounds bad put like that : let's call it "rendition".
Because of Coats? Or because Trump is keeping U.S. intelligence in the dark about what secret agreements he made with Putin?
Is that rhetorical?
Because Russians.
Surely, we haven't a clue.
It's totally in Russian interests to have a recording, but whether they could do so is hard to know.
Or didn't agree to, for that matter.
Nobody managed to prevent it - and many surely tried. Trump is unconstrained.
Don't know, in that same interview with Andrea Mitchell he claimed Trump is very interested and attentive in intelligence briefings, asks pertinent questions, the briefings run overtime, and Coats claimed other POTUSes are often less interested, only want the top 3 points or whatever (I'm guessing that was GW).
If anybody could, my money would be on them. Putin would order one made instinctively. The CIA probably have one as well, but can hardly admit spying on their own President. How Deep State would that look?
Dark days indeed.
You forget all those Trump attempts to establish a 'back channel' with Putin.
Perhaps Coats keeps Trump engaged by building trivial events into thrilling tales of derring-do, and skipping over the boring stuff.
Actually, when I look at those I mostly find Russian attempts to establish a back-channel through which they intended to influence Trump.
I think you give Trump too much credit (I don't suppose you hear that very often). I don't think he went into the meeting with any idea of what he was going to talk about, let alone ask for. Putin, in contrast, will have known exactly how to proceed. Stroke Trump ("He says I'm doing a great job in North Korea"), get him ranting about the media and the witch hunt and such deliberate souring of the relationship, from that to some "This is how it should be, two strong leaders face to face, both guys, sorting things out".
