President Donald Trump on Friday defended his son’s recent wedding party being partially bankrolled by a Russian oligarch, but also said he’d been told the money would be paid back.

“It’s totally allowed. And a lot of people have parties and all,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, before adding, “But, as I understand it, he paid them back.” He also said, “I hear he paid them back” without elaborating.

ProPublica first reported this week that Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, helped pay to rent a private island and for a fireworks show when Donald Trump Jr. and socialite Bettina Anderson were married in the Bahamas in May.

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[–] 82 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

Scandal that would have destroyed any and every politician prior to 2017 #314,231

Trump is the Sulla of the American empire. He won’t actually become emperor, but he slayed all the sacred cows and set the stage for someone else.

Hopefully the next is more Julius Caesar than Kushner or Vance. Or democracy gets saved in the US, but that seems like a long shot at this point long term.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    You're out here hoping for a Caesar, I just hope America somehow gets a soft landing when it stops being an empire, like the UK did.

    It's not gonna, I just think it's a better thing to hope for.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    I don't see that happening either. The UK saw the writing on and accepted it mostly gracefully (with some shenanigans here and there ofc). I can't imagine the US deciding, by themselves, to drastically scale back foreign bases or stop doing whatever they're doing in the middle east.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    They are scaling back, just in a disorderly, disruptive, and callous way that will create disasters for capitalists to profit from. You probably know that though

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