Here's What I Think is Going On Between Trump and Putin

(And Zelenskyy.)

Trump and Putin in 2017. (Kremlin/Creative Commons 4.0)

In a bid to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, the rhetoric of U.S. President Donald Trump has been Orwellian, verging on emetic. Last week, he lied and said that Ukraine started the war against Russia and called Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the democratically-elected president of Ukraine, a "dictator." Trump also vastly exaggerated the amount of U.S. financial support for Kyiv and the number of Ukrainian casualties. On February 24, Trump declined to call Russian leader Vladimir Putin a dictator, despite the fact that he has never won a free and fair election and routinely jails and kills his critics. The same day, in an about face of U.S. policy, the United States sided with Russia at the U.N. on a resolution about the war, while voting down a Ukraine-sponsored resolution naming the aggressor as Russia.

These comments have revived a claim that was popularized after the 2016 U.S. election--where Russia intervened on Trump's behalf--that he is a Russian intelligence asset. Several Europeans have asked me: "What is going on?" (Sometimes with expletives added.)

But I think there is a simpler answer to this question than the claim that Trump was cultivated by Soviet intelligence in the 1980s. (It's quite possible that he was approached, but he is far too disinhibited to be anybody's asset, let alone concerned about blackmail.)