For the past 24 hours a top news story has been the Trump administration embarrassment of not telling UN Ambassador Nikki Haley that after a joint State Dept. – White House economic team decision to impose sanctions on Russia, President Trump intervened and canceled them.
And not only did Trump “change course,” no one bothered to tell Haley. But on the very same day the UN Ambassador was telling America of the new sanctions, the Trump White House was telling Russia the truth: there would be none.
Haley made the talk show circuit Sunday, telling Americans the sanctions – for Russia enabling chemical warfare by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on his own people – would be implemented formally by the White House, if they hadn’t been already.
Trump was watching Haley and “grew angry,” according to The New York Times. Other reports say Trump’s anger involved a good deal of swearing.
Newly-minted Trump National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow made it worse, telling the media Haley got ahead of herself and “confused.”
She told CNN, “I don’t get confused.”
She’s right.
“According to several officials, the White House did not inform Ms. Haley that it had changed course on sanctions, leaving her to hang out alone,” the Times reports.
But according to CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto, while neither the President nor his team didn’t bother to tell their UN Ambassador Trump changed course, one group was made aware of the reversal: Russia.
The “Trump administration notified Russian Embassy in Washington no additional US sanctions were coming,” Sciutto noted on Twitter, citing a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman’s remarks to CNN.
Sciutto’s report is similar to an earlier report by Bloomberg.
“The Trump administration notified Russia’s U.S. embassy in Washington Sunday that it has no plans to impose any further sanctions soon, according to a Foreign Ministry official,” Bloomberg reports.