This Week, Donald Trump Became President-Elect and Also an Honorary Russian Cossack
A Russian Cossack group has named Trump one of their honorary own.
What a week for Donald J. Trump!
What a week for Donald J. Trump!
On Tuesday, he was elected to be the next president of the United States. And then, on Thursday, he met with President Barack Obama, Rep. Paul Ryan, and Sen. Mitch McConnell — AND he became an honorary Russian cossack!
Per the Moscow Times, “The Irbis Cossack group bestowed Trump with the title, inviting the entire Trump family to visit them in St. Petersburg.” Ataman Andrey Polyakov has even promised Trump a chance to look into the “mysterious Russian soul” through participation in a program of traditional activities.
For centuries, Cossacks have been known as fearsome warriors, hailed for their bravery on the battlefield. Donald Trump did not serve in any war, but he did describe sleeping around in the 1980s as his “personal Vietnam.”
The Cossacks are, of course, not the only Russians to celebrate Donald Trump’s election. President Vladimir Putin sent a telegram saying he trusts the two can work together to bring U.S.-Russian relations back from their “crisis state,” and Duma nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky popped champagne in parliament. And on Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Trump and Putin “set out the same main foreign-policy principles and that is incredible.”
Incredible is indeed one word for it.
Photo credit: MAX VETROV/AFP/Getty Images
Emily Tamkin is a global affairs journalist and the author of The Influence of Soros and Bad Jews. She was a staff writer at Foreign Policy from 2016-2018. Twitter: @emilyctamkin
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