{"id":254744,"date":"2025-03-08T13:48:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T13:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/08\/trumps-affinity-for-putin-grows-more-consequential-than-ever\/"},"modified":"2025-03-08T13:48:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T13:48:12","slug":"trumps-affinity-for-putin-grows-more-consequential-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/08\/trumps-affinity-for-putin-grows-more-consequential-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Affinity for Putin Grows More Consequential Than Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/08\/us\/politics\/08DC-TRUMP-PUTIN\/08DC-TRUMP-PUTIN-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Trump\u2019s Affinity for Putin Grows More Consequential Than Ever\" title=\"Trump\u2019s Affinity for Putin Grows More Consequential Than Ever\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In early 2017, American intelligence agencies delivered an <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dni.gov\/files\/documents\/ICA_2017_01.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">unequivocal judgment<\/a> about why President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had ordered a sprawling effort to sabotage the recent American presidential election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Putin wanted to cripple the faith Americans have in their own elections, they found, and to undermine a United States-led \u201cliberal world order\u201d that the Russians see as a threat to their security. As a way to achieve this goal, the assessment found, Russia worked to help Donald J. Trump win the election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Eight years later, Mr. Trump sat in the Oval Office for a blustery meeting with President Voldymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and rendered, once again, his own judgment on that period. There was no Russian sabotage, just a \u201cphony witch hunt\u201d of which both he and Mr. Putin were victims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cLet me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The statement was a tell. The president sees common cause with Mr. Putin, a merging of interests forged through battles against those he believes are his and Mr. Putin\u2019s mutual adversaries \u2014 including Democratic lawmakers, European leaders and a spectral \u201cdeep state\u201d inside the U.S. government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin has for years been scrutinized by American government inquiries, assessments by foreign intelligence services and news media investigations. Taken together, they have unearthed evidence to support an array of theories addressing Mr. Trump\u2019s affinity for a Russian strongman who has spent a career trying to undermine American interests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As yet, there is no single, tidy explanation. But based solely on Mr. Trump\u2019s public actions during his first six weeks back in office, the simple fact is that he has made few decisions on national security or foreign policy that have not been cheered by the Kremlin, making his stance toward Mr. Putin more consequential than ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This is a world turned upside down for Susan Miller, the former head of counterintelligence at the C.I.A., who led the agency\u2019s 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian election interference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Miller said in an interview that she thinks Mr. Trump\u2019s affinity for the Russian president boils down to \u201cautocrat envy\u201d\u2014 that he covets the power Mr. Putin has to make decisions in Russia without any constraints.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cTrump likes Putin because Putin has control over his country,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd Trump wants control over his country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump has accused Mr. Zelensky of beginning the war that started with a Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a war that has seen the mass slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. He has stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine that the country desperately needs to battle Russian forces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/18\/us\/politics\/foreign-aid-marocco-trump.html\" title=\"\">has gutted<\/a> American foreign aid programs that Mr. Putin has long detested, including pro-democracy programs in countries like Hungary that Russia is bringing closer into its sphere of influence. He has sidelined European allies, saying they are untrustworthy and suggesting they might have to fend for themselves in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump has defended his actions in part by saying they are necessary steps to getting Russia to the negotiating table, casting himself as a peace broker to end the war in Ukraine. Thus far, however, he has pushed far harder on Mr. Zelensky to make concessions than he has on Mr. Putin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Friday, he began the day with a social media post threatening economic sanctions against Russia for what he said was the \u201cpounding\u201d the Russian military was delivering in Ukraine. In the Oval Office <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/cspan\/status\/1898083983411249478\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">hours later<\/a>, however, he seemed to defend Mr. Putin, saying that Russia \u201cbombing the hell out of Ukraine\u201d was actually a sign that Russia wanted an end to the war. He criticized Ukraine for not, in his view, being as motivated to end the conflict.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhat is Putin getting? He is getting more than he and other former K.G.B. officers ever dreamed of,\u201d said Calder Walton of Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School of Government, who wrote a book on the history of espionage between Russia and the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is the dismantling before our eyes of the U.S.-led international order, something that Putin has worked toward his entire career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">How much does all this please Russian officials? Just ask them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin\u2019s longtime spokesman, went on state television two days after the Oval Office blowup with Mr. Zelensky and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2025\/03\/02\/russia-ukraine-trump-zelensky-clash\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">praised the Trump administration\u2019s decisions<\/a> since coming to power. The new White House agenda, he said, \u201clargely aligns with our vision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That same day, Sergey V. Lavrov, Mr. Putin\u2019s foreign minister, presented Russians with a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/05\/world\/europe\/russia-us-ukraine-trump-putin.html\" title=\"\">wholly different take on world history<\/a> than the one that Kremlin officials have taught for decades. Mr. Lavrov said it was European nations, not the United States, that were responsible for so many of history\u2019s great tragedies \u2014 citing the Crusades, the Napoleonic wars, World War I and the rise of Hitler.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf we look at history in retrospect,\u201d he said, \u201cthe Americans did not play any instigating, let alone incendiary, role.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Miller said there was no doubt among members of her counterintelligence team about Russia\u2019s intentions in disrupting the 2016 election: to spread disinformation and sow chaos with the aim of undermining confidence in the democratic process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the same time, she said, her agency team \u2014 which was joined by officials from the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. \u2014 was extremely careful and fiercely nonpartisan in assessing what impact the Russian interference had on Mr. Trump\u2019s election victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nevertheless, during the first Trump administration she found herself in the cross hairs of the team of prosecutors led by John Durham, whom Attorney General William P. Barr had appointed to investigate the origins of the F.B.I.\u2019s Russia investigation. She said that Mr. Durham and other prosecutors grilled her for more than eight hours about the intelligence assessment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey were looking for bias in our work,\u201d Ms. Miller said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t find any.\u201d Mr. Durham\u2019s final report found no fault with the 2017 intelligence assessment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, Mr. Trump\u2019s anger about what he calls the \u201cRussia hoax\u201d has festered for years, a grievance so deep he now sees Mr. Putin as his ally in victimhood.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Putin has spent years trying to shape Mr. Trump\u2019s thinking on Ukraine, and there is now little daylight between both men\u2019s public statements about the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The first time that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin met in person, during a July 2017 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the Russian president used <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/05\/us\/politics\/trump-putin-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">much of the time<\/a> disparaging Ukraine as a corrupt, fabricated country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said that Russia had every right to exert influence over Ukraine. He even justified Russian military operations in the country by raising the historical example of President Theodore Roosevelt\u2019s belief that the United States had the right to intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump is a longtime admirer of Roosevelt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Leaving the meeting, Rex Tillerson, then the secretary of state, told anxious White House aides that Mr. Putin had done his \u201cK.G.B. shtick,\u201d and that Mr. Trump had not pushed back on any of the Russian president\u2019s assertions about Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than two years later, the House impeached Mr. Trump because of a July 2019 phone call he had with Mr. Zelensky, during which he made continued American military support to Ukraine contingent on Mr. Zelensky helping dig up dirt on his political opponents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The episode further radicalized Mr. Trump\u2019s views not only toward Ukraine but also to his perceived \u201cdeep state\u201d enemies who testified during the impeachment proceedings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It also began to radicalize other Republicans against Ukraine, who began to echo some of the language that Mr. Putin has long used about the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This convergence of views has become even more pronounced in the weeks since Mr. Trump came back to power, as his administration presses Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal with Russia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterized the conflict in Ukraine <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-with-sean-hannity-of-fox-news\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on Fox News<\/a> not as a clear case of Russian aggression, but as a dangerous \u201cproxy war\u201d between the United States and Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said in a statement afterward that he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/tass.com\/politics\/1923277\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">agreed entirely<\/a>. It was, he said, another example of the positions of the White House and the Kremlin aligning \u201cperfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/08\/us\/politics\/trumps-affinity-for-putin-grows-more-consequential-than-ever.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early 2017, American intelligence agencies delivered an unequivocal judgment about why President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had ordered a sprawling effort to sabotage the recent American presidential election. Mr. Putin wanted to cripple the faith Americans have in their own elections, they found, and to undermine a United States-led \u201cliberal world order\u201d that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/08\/us\/politics\/08DC-TRUMP-PUTIN\/08DC-TRUMP-PUTIN-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[197005,48050,163575,7850,209,52,197004,1734,128437,163486,128440],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254746,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254744\/revisions\/254746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}