Newt Gingrich: Trump's embarrassing behavior shows his "psychological agenda" for Putin

Putin has successfully played Trump like a cheap violin, stroking Trump’s ego and successfully pressuring Trump to work to lift sanctions against the country that interfered in our election. The Trump team has even been preparing a list of “deliverables” to offer Putin in a stunning and inexplicable act of appeasement.

But according to Newt Gingrich, the former disgraced House speaker and one of Trump’s most ardent supporters, that’s all part of Trump’s “psychological agenda.”

That’s what Gingrich told the gang at “Fox & Friends,” the most Trump-friendly show on TV:

Gingrich says Trump may not have a “policy agenda” for his meeting with Putin but has a “psychological agenda” pic.twitter.com/pqquUMy97P

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) July 7, 2017

GINGRICH: It was the same deal with Ronald Reagan, who met with Gorbachev one on one, and they’re very similar. Look, Donald Trump has an agenda the minute he wakes up every morning. Donald Trump’s not going to walk in this meeting and go, “Oh gee, now I’m here with Vladimir Putin. I wonder what I will do.” He has been thinking about this meeting for almost a year. He has a good sense of what he wants to accomplish. I think he’s going to turn most of the details over to Secretary Tillerson, but I think in terms of shaping the meeting, the guy who wrote “The Art of the Deal” understands what he wants to communicate. And I think he has a psychological agenda, whether or not he has a detailed policy agenda.

On the very morning that Gingrich praised Trump for waking up with a clear agenda, Trump was posting his “agenda” on Twitter for all the world to see. And it certainly did not appear to concern Putin.

It was about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Again.

Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA. Disgraceful!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 7, 2017

And attacking the media as fake news. Again.

I will represent our country well and fight for its interests! Fake News Media will never cover me accurately but who cares! We will #MAGA!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 7, 2017

Oh, and buttering up his good friend Putin. Again.

I look forward to all meetings today with world leaders, including my meeting with Vladimir Putin. Much to discuss.#G20Summit #USA🇺🇸

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 7, 2017

Trump might have an agenda for his meeting with Putin — according to Gingrich, a Reaganesque one — but all signs from Trump and his administration point to an agenda of surrender and appeasement.

Trump has repeatedly rejected the findings of the entire U.S. intelligence community to insist Russia’s meddling is “fake news,” or, more recently, that if it happened — and he still won’t admit that it did — it was President Barack Obama’s fault.

During Trump’s visit, CNN reported that Russia is sending a growing number of spies to the United States to further infiltrate our intelligence agencies, and the Trump administration is doing nothing to stop it.

If Trump went into his meeting with Putin with a stern and clever agenda, it certainly doesn’t look that way. During their meeting Friday, Trump greeted Putin with a warm handshake and a pat on the back. That’s a far friendlier greeting than Trump has offered to some of our closest allies.

But maybe it’s part of Trump’s brilliant “psychological agenda,” and the rest of the world is wrong to cringe in horror at the president of the United States showing such affection to an autocratic world leader who props up dictators, hacks other countries, and by all accounts has a nefarious plan to undermine western civilization.

Or maybe Newt Gingrich is just plain wrong.