The Real Reason Trump Bows Down to Putin

Trump’s comments about NATO and his silence on Navalny have made his relationship with Russia a major issue (again)

The last couple of weeks have further illuminated where Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans stand on one of the most important policy issues facing the world — the threat of Vladimir Putin and an aggressive Russia.

It began with Trump encouraging Putin to invade a NATO country that Trump (incorrectly) believed had spent enough money on its own defense.

Trump then urged a coalition of MAGA Republicans to kill a bipartisan deal that would have improved border security and sent much-needed aid to Ukraine. The Senate overcame Trump’s opposition and passed a bill that included the aid but not the border security provisions. Speaker Mike Johnson, at Trump’s behest, declared the bill dead on arrival in the House. On Friday, the world woke to the tragic news that Putin critic Alexi Navalny had died in a Russian prison. President Biden addressed the nation and blamed Putin for Navalny’s death. Trump and his MAGA cohorts were silent. When Trump eventually addressed the killing on Truth Social, he found a way to make Navalny’s death about — you guessed it — himself.

None of this is new; Trump has played footsie with Putin ever since he publicly asked Putin to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. Trump refused to accept mountains of evidence that Russia actively interfered in the 2016 election, and then, of course, there was an infamous moment when Trump was on stage next to Putin in Helsinki and took Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence agencies.

Now that Trump’s overly friendly relationship is at the forefront of the 2024 campaign, it’s time to ask again why he does it and how Democrats can make him pay for it.

The Awful Politics of Being Pro-Putin

Trump wants to return to the White House. He has a huge incentive to do so — it’s the best way to ensure the rest of his days aren’t spent moping around a federal penitentiary trying to convince his neighbors on cell block B to turn the channel on the communal TV to Fox News’s The Five. That’s why Trump’s largely unrequited bromance with Putin is so odd. Americans do not love Russia or Putin.