According to Bob Woodward’s latest “rumors and gossip as history” soon-to-be best seller, Donald Trump, as President in in 2020, sent Wuhan Virus testing equipment to Vladimir Putin for his personal use. In Kamala Harris’s predictably revolting interview with past-his-pull-date sleaze merchant Howard Stern yesterday, we had this exchange:
STERN: What did you what did you think of this thing that just came out today that Bob Woodward’s book was saying that Trump was sending COVID tests to Putin and Putin said, don’t let anyone know. I mean, this is — what is going on? What do you make of that?…Who you only wish Putin would have gotten COVID and dropped dead!
HARRIS: Well, the point —
STERN: I wish that.
HARRIS: — well, the point being that is just the most recent — stark example of who Donald Trump is that he secretly sent COVID test kits for the personal use of Putin, of Russia, an
adversary to the United States. When he was talking about Americans should be putting bleach in their blood.
STERN: Yep.
HARRIS: Think about what this is. Think about this — this person who wants to be president again who secretly is helping out an adversary when the American people are dying by the hundreds every day and in need of relief, and instead, how did he handle it domestically, from Americans? He mismanaged the whole thing.
Now, as I just noted in the previous post, Harris and Stern—what a nice pair they make!— are assuming that what Bob Woodward puts in his books are verified facts, and they seldom are. This account hasn’t been substantiated, but never mind, it can be used to smear Trump, so it must be true.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Was it unethical for President Trump to send Putin a pandemic testing device in 2020?
This was before Russia invaded Ukraine, remember, a detail that Harris deliberately blurs, and also implies that he did this when he was no longer President. My answer to the quiz is an emphatic, “Of course not!” but I’m willing to be convinced otherwise by a rational, non-Trump Deranged argument
Ethics Alarms 
I’m old enough to remember that we were rebooting our relationship with Russia, and seeing Russia as international threat was just SO 80’s foreign policy.
I also thought that the WuFlu was supposed to be this world-wide event of nations coming together against a common adversary. We’re all in this together, right? Shouldn’t we all be doing our part to stop the spread of COVID?
Is it ethical to give another human being medical equipment in times of a medical emergency? In general, yes. What about being more specific? Does it matter if that medical equipment goes to a healthy person who really doesn’t need it? Is scarcity a factor, so that handing out medical equipment to one person means another person will not receive it? Does the global political landscape matter, in that giving said medical to an adversary might prolong his life, and ultimately lead to greater conflict down the road? How does this calculation change between an adversary in active conflict, versus one who might be a threat down the road?
To answer my question, it would be unethical to give medical equipment to a healthy person who really doesn’t need it, because scarcity is almost always a factor in reality. The medical equipment should go to those who need it more. American equipment should also go to Americans ahead of Russians, unless the case can be made that protecting Russians somehow translates to also protecting Americans (such as by creating a buffer against the spread of a disease). Giving add to an adversary in peaceful times could possibly create inroads in matters of diplomacy, so that could also be a good reason. But to give aid to an adversary during times of conflict would prolong the conflict and perhaps create greater devastation.
So weighing all the factors, I could give Trump a pass on giving the COVID tests to Putin. The tests are so abundant that many people I know have stockpiles of them they never intend to use (though at this point, that might be consequentialism). We were not in any conflict with Putin, and making inroads diplomatically could help lead off future conflicts.
However, I also have a feeling that the same people who are dismayed that Trump’s assassins were unsuccessful would leap at the argument that Trump giving Putin the tests could have saved Putin’s life, and if Putin had died from the WuFlu, there would be no Ukraine war.
A little Golden Rule logic goes a long ways.
Given points 1 and 2, the answer to the question in 3 is an easy “No”.
As for VP Harris, her interview shows her to be stinkier than my one-year-old grandson’s diarrhea-filled diapers. The next ad from the Trump campaign should be one in which Harris – in October 2020 – tells people she wouldn’t trust any “vaccine” from the Trump Administration, followed by her again – in December 2020 – telling everyone how effective the “vaccine” was. She and many of her cohorts are the ones playing politics with medical advice.
VP Harris shouldn’t throw fish this big into the barrel. Good thing she’s too stupid not to.
BTW, JD Vance took a question the other day about Woodward – I now presume regarding this issue – and first responded with, “I didn’t even know Woodward was still alive.”
“BTW, JD Vance took a question the other day about Woodward – I now presume regarding this issue – and first responded with, ‘I didn’t even know Woodward was still alive.’”
Ouch.
jvb
This is the correct response, in addition, what are we talking about? A de minimus value of $10 and an unlikelihood that it would actually be used because the Russians would certainly test it to see if some part of it was laced with a poison? They tolerate the U.S. in good times, they don’t ever trust us. At best, it was an empty gesture.
(and arguably smart diplomacy…)
A “keep your friends close and enemies closer” kind of diplomacy.
Maybe, but one could also argue that it is an insult to Russia, as in we’re saying their medical establishment is not advanced enough to produce Covid tests.
I would also toss in that while these tests are common as dirt now, I do seem to recall there were shortages during 2020, especially earlier in the year.
Now, surely, if there were tests at all, the president would have had one. In fact I’d venture to say that Trump and now Biden are probably really tired of having q-tips shoved up their nostrils. Or maybe I’m just projecting…..
This doesn’t really pass the sniff test. Why would Trump need to send Putin one when Putin is arguably one of the top most powerful people in the world and could get one on his own, let alone for personal use, let alone telling others not to share the fact when the act of sending it would involve a number of people?
Setting all that aside, its a medical device. I can’t see there being anything wrong with it unless they are trying to make a case to lessen the world of his burden, but seeing as these are the same people who want to send aid into Hamas controlled territory, I think they need to reconcile those two ideas first.
Agreed. I wonder how many test kits Trump sent to Putin. One? Ten? 100? Millions?
jvb
Woodward also accused General Mark Milley of treason.
Milley called a Chinese General and promised to notify them ahead of time is we were planning to attack them on October 30, 2020. It doesn’t take Woodward to accuse Milley of treason, you just need to listen to Milley.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Didn’t Saint Barack of O’Bama mock Mitt Romney for saying he considered Russia our most threatening geopolitical adversary by snarking, “The 1980s called, and they want their foreign policy back.” What an asshole. And didn’t St. Hillary give a “reset” button to Medvedev or someone like that? Was that while she was actually Secretary of State or was that just when she was shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars from Russians and all sort of other bad guys all around the world into her and her husband’s pockets? These people are pathetically shameless.
Barry also promised Putin’s placeholder he would be more “flexible” after the election.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/0mgQaFlo_p8
A Presidential candidate doing an interview with Howard Stern? A woman Presidential candidate doing an interview with Howard Stern? Norms? What norms? We don’t need no stinking norms! Unbelievable. What are the people running the Harris campaign thinking? MO-rons.
I know you won’t believe this, but I am sure they are panicking. They know Harris can’t handle serious spontaneous interviews without sounding like the intellectually lazy, rhetorically challenged phony that she is, but they have to get her out there somehow. But she even managed to botch an easy question on The View. I really think she is free fall; I think I was right—amazingly—about the Walz implosion being a tipping point, and I sense everywhere that Democrats and the general public realize the jig is up. That explains the sudden surge of Trump on the betting sites. Oh, Trump can blow it, but Harris is incapable of turning around her death spiral herself.
People are actually evaluating her, rather than simply being joyful? Wouldn’t that be nice.
We just spent major portions of the previous two days driving through quasi-rural Wisconsin. The Harris Walz signs were ubiquitous and outnumbered the Trump Vance signs two or three to one. Particularly annoying were the countless Harris Walz identical signs that were printed to appear as if they had been hand painted by some earnest, enthusiastic Democrat voter. So cynical.
Perhaps the greatest concentration of Harris-Walz signs OB observed during the urban portion of his America’s Dairyland excellent adventure happened to be on my street.
An attempt to allay his less-than-optimal experience with some (arguably) World Class Organic Heirloom Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, and Garlic apparently came up short.
North of Hwy 10, except for some isolated Lefty enclaves (polluted [IMO] by being college towns) a far different world emerges, almost like flipping a switch; give us another chance…
PWS
I wonder if Kamala is aware of Stern’s misogyny. Years ago, one of his bits were racist yo momma jokes. One involved doing splits and sticking to the floor. Over the years Stern’s schtick has been to sexualize and objectify women.
He makes Trump look like a champion of chivalry.
Who knows what she is aware of, Chris. But her paid handlers surely know about Stern. I hope Jack’s right that the scales are dropping from people’s eyes. I continue to fear “but TRUMP!” will overcome any fears they have about Harris.
All signs indicate that the internal no-nonsense polling the campaigns do are showing Harris losing steam. The increasingly shrill and desperate media coverage tells me that; the crazy Harris choices of “interview” venues, the mood around DC, and Trump’s absolute veto of another debate. The storm response, the tenor of Harris’s rhetoric…Then there are the betting sites, which read vibes. I think there is a plausible chance of a landslide.
No, it wasn’t unethical. Regardless of what people think, we are not at war with Russia. They are a geopolitical adversary, but they are not an enemy.
It is not unreasonable for a leader to attempt to influence another by an act of what appears to be kindness. Acting as though Russia is an enemy is the surest way to make them one, and that benefits exactly nobody.
Except maybe the Democrats, who have been assuring us in all their moral superiority since Trump was elected that Russia is, in fact, an enemy.