Rachel Maddow ridiculed Donald Trump for “inexplicably” cutting favors to Russia as reports point to them continuing to help Iran.
On Monday’s episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the host marveled at Trump’s continued favors toward Russia despite the country lending a hand to Iran as the U.S. continues its war. The latest offense was allowing a Russian ship through a U.S. blockade of Cuba to supply the country with oil.
“Since the start of this war in Iran, we have seen report after report citing U.S. officials and British officials, even German officials, all saying that Russia is helping Iran target U.S. assets, helping Iran target and attack and kill and wound U.S. troops,” Maddow said. “So how is the United States roaring back at Russia for that? How are we getting them to back off? How are we making them pay for doing that? Not at all. We’re not doing anything – quite the opposite.”
She added: “President Donald Trump has instead inexplicably twice cut sanctions on Russian oil. And then this weekend, Trump decided to additionally give Russia a big new gift. The U.S. has imposed a blockade on all sorts of fuel to the island nation of Cuba for a couple of months now. But this weekend, for some reason – who knows why – Trump decided to let a Russian oil tanker go right through the blockade, sail on through, true, unmolested, to bring oil to Cuba anyway. I mean, Trump’s war on Iran has been one question mark after another about the most serious stuff in the world.”
On Sunday, Trump commented on Russia being allowed to send a boat of oil through the U.S. blockade into Cuba. Despite years of tug-of-war for the island nation between the U.S. and Russia, the president seemed unconcerned that “one boatload” of oil was allowed into the country and even less worried that it helped Vladimir Putin.
“It doesn’t help him. He loses one boatload of oil, that’s all it is,” Trump said. “If he wants to do that, and if other countries want to do it, it doesn’t bother me much. It’s not going to have an impact. Cuba’s finished. They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it’s not going to matter.”
He continued: “I’d prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else because the people need heat and cooling and all of the other things.”
