RUSH: Dmitry Medvedev. He was a very tight and close associate of Vladimir Putin. He was the guy, if you recall, that reported to Putin what Obama had said on the open Mike in 2012, “Tell Vladimir that I’ll have a lot more flexibility to reducing American nuclear weapons after I win reelection. Tell Vladimir to be patient.” Medvedev said, “I will pass the message along to Vladimir.” Okay. Dmitry Medvedev posted on his Facebook page, and I’m gonna read to you…

Not the whole thing. I’m gonna read to you the two salient paragraphs. “The U.S. president’s signing of the package of new sanctions against Russia will have a few consequences. First, it ends hopes for improving our relations with the new U.S. administration. Second, it is a declaration of a full-fledged economic war on Russia. The Trump administration has shown its total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way. This changes the power balance in U.S. political circles.”

“What does it mean for them? The U.S. establishment fully outwitted Trump.” This is Dmitry Medvedev on his Facebook page. “The U.S. establishment fully outwitted Trump; the president is not happy about the new sanctions, yet he could not but sign the bill. The issue of new sanctions came about, primarily, as another way to knock Trump down a peg. New steps are to come, and they will ultimately aim to remove him from power. A non-systemic player has to be removed.

“Meanwhile, the interests of the U.S. business community are all but ignored, with politics chosen over a pragmatic approach. Anti-Russian hysteria has become a key part of both U.S. foreign policy … and domestic policy…” Now, this is a taunt unlike I don’t remember the Russians taunting Clinton or Bush. There was some of this taunting of Obama. You had to find it, though. It wasn’t reported. But for Dmitry Medvedev to say that the president was “outwitted” by the Washington establishment and it has turned him into someone with no power?

This… They’re goading him. I guarantee you this is designed to goad Trump into some kind of response and reaction. It is a full-fledged taunt, and Trump knows it. He didn’t want to have to sign this thing, the Russian sanctions bill. But Trump’s not boxed in. He can’t do anything that makes it look like that he sides with Russia on it. Whether it makes sense or not, he just can’t do it because of this yearlong allegation of collusion and what have you.