I think you give Trump far too much credit, and attribute "strategy" to him of which he has no cognizance. He doesn't think; he just shoots from the lip. He has deeply held, and usually erroneous, beliefs upon which he instinctively acts without reason. He thinks only of himself. And he's still talking about Hillary! Come on, man. How many mulligans are you going to give him?I think that there’s some truth to that to a limited degree. And I agree with Lindsey Graham’s assessment of the Trump/Putin meeting.
I am only guessing, but I think that in Trump’s mind Russia’s DNC email shenanigans exposed to the public actual DNC correspondence that quite frankly revealed a corrupt conspiracy against Bernie Sanders. None of the actual contents of the leaked correspondence was ever disputed by the authors. And again I am only guessing but my sense is that in Trump’s mind this happened under the Obama administration’s watch and it was up to them to do something about it. The Obama FBI alerted the DNC and the HRC campaign to the security breech and its my understanding that the DNC declined the FBI’s internet help. HRC hired a couple Pakistani Nationals to run her internet security (as did DWS at DNC) and we know where that went.
Again a guess, but I think that in Trump’s mind EU tariffs and sanctions against US Companies are a more imminent and direct threat against America. My guess (who knows) is that if Trump had a zero tariff zero subsidy reciprocal trade agreement with the EU then the meeting might have gone differently - but for now, my guess is that Trump is looking to lever Russia against the EU.
I just don’t think that as long as James Mattis is Defense Secretary that Russia will be a military threat against the US.
And how is it that some Republicans are supposedly more concerned about the DNC allegedly screwing their own than they are about a malevolent foreign power trying to subvert the nation's democracy?