June 06, 2017 11:04 AM UTC

Gardner, Trump To Talk Cory's Philippines Field Trip!

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• by: Colorado Pols

That’s what the Denver Post’s Mark Matthews would have us believe:

President Donald Trump plans to discuss foreign policy — including his first overseas trip as chief executive — during a Tuesday night dinner at the White House with U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado and five other congressional Republicans.

The get-together will give Trump an opportunity to debrief lawmakers on his nine-day, five-country tour that included a royal welcome in Saudi Arabia, a sitdown with Pope Francis at the Vatican and often-tense meetings with other NATO leaders in Brussels, Belgium.

The dinner also could provide a platform for Gardner to talk about his own overseas travels, including a controversial meeting with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte that Gardner said last week included a discussion of Duterte’s brutal crackdown on drug dealers and users that’s left thousands dead. Trump has praised that bloody approach and has invited Duterte to the White House in the future.

The anti-drug campaign by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, which has allegedly resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings and has been condemned by human rights organizations across the globe, has met with a decidedly mixed response from the United States since President Donald Trump took office. Trump has reportedly praised Duterte’s tactics in terms that fully acknowledge the killing of drug dealers and addicts without trial, while Sen. Cory Gardner claimed–at least after news of his trip to Manila broke–that he went to Manila to express his concerns over those very same tactics.

We still haven’t seen any coverage of Gardner’s supposed criticism of Duterte in Filipino media, although Trump’s support for Duterte has been very well publicized. The silent video of Gardner’s “courtesy call” in Manila betrays nothing about what was discussed there, but the images of Gardner smiling and giving gifts to Duterte don’t reconcile with Gardner’s claims that he went to Manila to complain at all.

With all of this in mind, obviously, we’d love to be a fly on the White House wall tonight! We have trouble imagining the conversation will be as tense as Gardner’s backside-covering rhetoric suggests.