In February alone, Donald Trump encouraged Russia \u201cto do whatever the hell they want\u201d to NATO allies that do not contribute sufficiently to the military alliance.<\/p>\n
He refused to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny, 47, a Kremlin critic who died suddenly on Feb. 16 in a Russian penal colony \u2014 instead likening himself to Navalny, arguing they were both political prisoners.<\/p>\n
And in a Fox News town hall Tuesday evening, he praised Russia for being \u201ca war machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey defeated Hitler,\u201d Trump declared, apparently referring to the Soviet Union\u2019s role in World War II.<\/p>\n
Since announcing his first presidential campaign in 2015, Russia has followed Trump like an unshakable thunder cloud. The former president has repeatedly expressed a fascination with Russia, lavished praise on Putin and refused to stand up to the Russian president on a range of issues \u2014 from interfering in the 2016 presidential election to invading Ukraine almost exactly two years ago.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s reticence to forcefully confront Russia and his regular adulation of Putin have long raised the question: With Trump, why do \u201call roads lead to Putin?\u201d as then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) memorably asked in 2019 during a contentious Cabinet Room meeting.<\/p>\n
His latest round of pro-Russian cheerleading raises the same query \u2014 but now against a dramatically changed backdrop. The Russia-Ukraine war is entering its third year, with no signs of abating. Putin critics are calling the death of Navalny \u2014 who had survived a previous Russian attempt to poison him \u2014 a murder. And under Trump\u2019s leadership, the Republican Party has drifted in a remarkably isolationist direction on foreign policy, with House Republicans currently holding up much-needed aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis buddy-buddy \u2014 whatever it happens to be \u2014 affection with Putin is dangerous \u2014 to our transatlantic alliance, to NATO, to our support of people fighting for democracy in Ukraine,\u201d Pelosi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Navalny assassination is something that is so startling and so blatant, and to see the former president\u2019s comment about it just continues us on the path of: What is his connection to Russia?\u201d Pelosi added.<\/p>\n
Both Russia experts and some Trump confidants say the answer is far more straightforward than some of the existing theories, including the theory that the Russians have damaging material \u2014 known as kompromat \u2014 on Trump and are using it to blackmail him.<\/p>\n
Rather, they say, the former president simply likes dictators and strongmen like Putin.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy explanation is he just likes these big guys who did what they wanted to do, and he wanted to be a big guy who does what he wants to do,\u201d said John Bolton, Trump\u2019s former national security adviser who has since become an outspoken Trump critic.<\/p>\n
Bolton described a broad \u201cpattern of behavior,\u201d pointing to Trump\u2019s friendliness and fascination with other authoritarian leaders like Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Viktor Orban of Hungary and Xi Jinping of China.<\/p>\n
Trump, Bolton added, \u201chad difficulty with a lot of democratically elected foreign leaders, particularly women,\u201d and would sometimes refer to Xi as \u201cking\u201d \u2014 \u201cbecause he was so impressive, so much in charge of China,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Michael McFaul, ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, similarly said that Trump admires strongmen leaders, but added that the former president also seems to genuinely share a similar governing philosophy with some of these authoritarians.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a kind of ideological affinity between them, and there\u2019s a kind of transnational movement of these populist nationalists, and the things that Trump says and the things that Putin says are very similar,\u201d McFaul said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s just Trump mimicking Putin. I think that\u2019s their shared worldview, and there\u2019s millions of people who have that view.\u201d<\/p>\n
A former senior adviser to Trump, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment, added that Trump was simply \u201cenvious of dictators.\u201d This person added that \u201c10 times a day, maybe,\u201d he and other top advisers tried to explain to Trump that Putin was dangerous and a threat to U.S. interests, but Trump was taken by Putin\u2019s \u201ctough guy image.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPutin and the other ones just worked him,\u201d this person said. \u201cIt\u2019s a vanity thing with him. It\u2019s a tough guy thing. As long as you\u2019re playing to those weakness, he\u2019s going to think a lot of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump campaign rejected the notion that the former president was soft in his dealings with Putin. The campaign pointed to recent comments from the Russian president in which he said he preferred President Biden to Trump, describing Biden as \u201cmore experienced,\u201d \u201cmore predictable\u201d and \u201can old-school politician.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVladimir Putin recently endorsed Joe Biden for president because he knows Biden is weak and can easily be bullied, as evidenced by Putin\u2019s years-long invasion of Ukraine,\u201d Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. \u201cWhen President Trump was in the Oval Office, Russia and all of America\u2019s adversaries were deterred, because they feared how the United States would respond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet Trump and Putin\u2019s relationship remains especially complicated. The U.S. intelligence community, a bipartisan Senate panel and a two-year investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III all found that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s efforts to interfere were \u201csweeping and systematic,\u201d Mueller found.<\/p>\n
But Trump has refused to acknowledge that reality, repeatedly dismissing it as the \u201cRussia hoax\u201d and a political \u201cwitch hunt\u201d meant to hurt him. Some people close to him privately say that he cannot disentangle his personal animosity and feelings of persecution over the fallout from Russia\u2019s election interference with his foreign policy stances toward the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor him, the idea that Russia interfered on his behalf undercuts his great win,\u201d said Fiona Hill, who served as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council during the first two years of the Trump administration. \u201cHe was always saying, \u2018No, no, I won. I had a great win.\u2019 He also didn\u2019t want to be humiliated on behalf of Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIf Putin actually did say to him, \u2018You know, Donald, we did steal the election for you,\u2019 he\u2019d just implode because it undercuts his idea of being a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of Trump\u2019s motivations, his policies also have supporters. Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, described the Biden administration\u2019s stance toward Ukraine as amounting to \u201ca forever war, in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of Republican voters are asking themselves, \u2018Does the administration or does anybody have a plausible theory of victory here?\u2019 and I think it\u2019s very easy to answer that question in the negative,\u201d Logan said. \u201cWe\u2019re just going to keep spending until Russia is bled white, and I think that\u2019s not a great plan from the point of view of the American taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward King, founder and president of Defense Priorities, a foreign policy think tank, praised Trump for \u201cat the very least getting the attention of Europeans\u201d when it comes to NATO.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely I\u2019m in favor of rethinking the U.S. role in NATO,\u201d King said. \u201cI\u2019m skeptical of permanent alliances, because that offers all sorts of trouble in the form of entanglements and getting involved in conflicts because of our relationships with countries rather than a sober look at U.S. security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet Trump\u2019s ties with and behavior toward Russia \u2014 dating back to his days as a New York developer, eager to expand his empire to Moscow \u2014 have long raised concerns from fellow world leaders, Democratic lawmakers, his own national security team and even, at times, some of his fellow Republicans.<\/p>\n
In June 2016, Trump\u2019s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., met at Trump Tower in New York with Russians promising dirt on his dad\u2019s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton \u2014 and Trump later personally dictated the misleading statement that his son initially put out about the meeting.<\/p>\n
At a news conference the following month, Trump publicly called on Russia to hack Clinton\u2019s emails, saying, \u201cRussia, if you\u2019re listening, I hope you\u2019re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once elected, Trump\u2019s bromance with Putin continued. In May 2017, Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during an Oval Office meeting, prompting both current and former U.S. officials to warn that Trump\u2019s revelations jeopardized a key source of intelligence on the Islamic State.<\/p>\n
Trump also repeatedly threatened to upend the NATO alliance \u2014 long a Putin goal. And at a 2018 summit in Helsinki, Trump met privately with Putin for two hours, joined only by their interpreters, before appearing at a news conference and siding with the Russian president over his own intelligence agencies on the issue of Russia\u2019s election interference.<\/p>\n
The Helsinki summit was hardly an aberration; throughout his presidency, Trump regularly worked to conceal details of his meetings and conversations with Putin from his own senior advisers.<\/p>\n
His controversial behavior continued once he left office. In February 2022, for instance, as Putin commenced his invasion of Ukraine, Trump described Putin and his aggression as \u201cgenius\u201d and \u201cpretty savvy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most recently, he seemed to invite Russia to invade NATO counties that fall short of targets for military spending, again criticizing allied nations for not sufficiently contributing to NATO\u2019s shared defense.<\/p>\n
Alexander S. Vindman, who served as director of European and Russian affairs for the National Security Council during Trump\u2019s presidency, said he fears that Putin sees Trump\u2019s recent comments and views them as an opportunity to further ramp up Russian hostility in Ukraine \u2014 and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is signaling what a future in a second Trump administration would be like, which is friendly to our enemies and hostile to our friends,\u201d Vindman said. \u201cFrom Russia\u2019s perspective, that is an optimal scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is unclear if Trump\u2019s embrace of Russia and reluctance to help Ukraine is a winning issue politically. Polls pretty consistently show that about one-third of Americans say the United States is doing too much to help Ukraine, while most say the United States is doing the right amount or not doing enough.<\/p>\n
A February ABC News-Ipsos poll found Americans roughly split between whether they trusted Biden (33 percent) or Trump (36 percent) more to do a better job handling the war between Ukraine and Russia. An additional 28 percent said neither, and 4 percent said they trusted both equally.<\/p>\n
And a Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that 56 percent of registered voters support sending more military aid to Ukraine for its efforts in the war against Russia. The same poll found 47 percent approved of the way Biden is handling the response to Russia\u2019s invasion, higher than the 40 percent who approve of his overall job performance.<\/p>\n
McFaul said Trump\u2019s pro-Russian comments could reverberate with Ukrainian Americans, as well as other voters who have family still living in Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou won\u2019t be surprised that they were outraged by those comments, and there are people from those countries that live in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama senior adviser, said that while \u201ca lot of Trump\u2019s palling around with Putin is baked in the cake,\u201d it also provides Democrats with a real opportunity heading into the presidential election.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is running as a strong man, and it is essential when you\u2019re running against a would-be strongman to reveal their weakness, and this month, with his comments about Putin, is a great opportunity to do that,\u201d Pfeiffer said.<\/p>\n
Already, the Biden campaign has seized on Trump\u2019s recent remarks. A minute-long ad airing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin features Trump\u2019s comments encouraging Russia \u201cto do whatever the hell they want,\u201d before a narrator intones: \u201cNo president has ever said anything like it. It\u2019s shameful. It\u2019s weak. It\u2019s dangerous. It\u2019s un-American.\u201d<\/p>\n
And after Trump\u2019s comments during the Fox News town hall, where he again failed to forcefully defend the NATO alliance, the Biden campaign blasted out a statement criticizing him for \u201cempowering Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump is a weak leader \u2014 someone who doesn\u2019t understand the power of democracy here at home or across the globe,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n
One aspect of Trump\u2019s stance on Russia has remained remarkably consistent: Its ability to alarm U.S. allies.<\/p>\n
Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Trump and Russia was what everyone was talking about at the recent Munich Security Conference, during which news of Navalny\u2019s death emerged.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all anybody ever asks: \u2018Is he coming back, and what does it mean?\u2019\u201d Hill said, repeating the queries she fielded about Trump in Munich. \u201cThey just keep asking the same question, and they keep getting the same answer: \u2018Yeah, he could come back, and it means you need to get your act together.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Scott Clement, Emily Guskin and Sonia Vargas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In February alone, Donald Trump encouraged Russia \u201cto do whatever the hell they want\u201d to NATO allies that do not contribute sufficiently to the military alliance. He refused to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of Alexei Navalny, 47, a Kremlin critic who died suddenly on Feb. 16 in a Russian penal colony […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}