Quick thread on today’s Trump-Lavrov meeting in the Oval Office: Fact of the meeting is yet another reminder that there's no method to the madness in Trump's chasing after Putin and unconstrained desire for another reset with Russia. 1/ 
There's been zero indication of what Trump hope to achieve from the meeting (after all, the bilateral agenda is completely barren). The Russian agenda is totally transparent , but no one at the White House or State Dept can say "no" to this President. 2/
It’s surely not a coincidence, as the Russian saying goes, that Lavrov is coming straight from yesterday’s 4-way Paris summit with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to brief Trump on the outcome. That is beyond humiliating for #Ukraine. 3/
Thanks to the Trump/Giuliani imbroglio and impeachment drama, the once-close US-Ukraine relationship is now in ruins. The US is totally off the diplomatic playing field when it comes to the Ukraine conflict, which gives Moscow add’l leverage. 4/
NYT's @SangerNYT suggests Trump/Putin may be cooking up a deal to extend New START treaty due to expire in Feb 2021. Perhaps. Yet all US officials from Trump on down keep pushing Bolton’s smokescreen that extension depends on including China in treaty. nyti.ms/2rlFUYY 5/
@SangerNYT If this intellectually untenable US position shifts, we should all applaud. If not, Trump administration will bear most of the blame for the collapse of the arms control regime that has served our interests well since the 1970s. 6/
@SangerNYT It’s a mistake to treat dialogue with the Kremlin as a reward in and of itself and that we can somehow gain leverage by isolating Russia. (That ship sailed in the wake of John Kerry’s moves to engage Putin/Lavrov over Syria back in early 2016.) 7/
@SangerNYT But it’s madness not to be well-prepared for Presidential-level meetings. (The Russians surely will be.) I wrote about how Putin and Lavrov have run circles around Trump during their past meetings here: politico.com/magazine/story…. Anyone remember the Helsinki fiasco? 8/
@SangerNYT Today’s meeting will be no different. Moscow’s brand of foreign policy in overdrive on so many fronts (Syria, the UK elections, China, Libya, etc., etc.) while Trump administration national security decision-making is basically at a standstill. 9/
@SangerNYT Making matters worse, in the wake of John Bolton’s and Amb. @JonHuntsman's departures, the foreign policy team no longer has a point-person on Russia policy. Neither the NSC nor the State Dept has designated a senior-level person who can fill their shoes. #HomeAlone 10/
@SangerNYT @JonHuntsman So who’s in charge? Surely, it’s Trump himself. Sure, he has a well-established penchant for highly personalized dealings with the world’s strongmen (Erdogan, Kim Jong-un, Xi, Sisi, et al). But his affection for Putin and Russia remains totally inexplicable. END
