Carlo Allegri/Reuters; Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Few foreign leaders seem enthusiastic about the prospect of a Donald
Trump presidency. But there is one who should be pleased: Vladimir
Putin. Or so Trump seems to think. Most prominent Republicans criticize
President Obama for reacting too feebly to Russian domestic oppression,
the Russian invasion of southern and southeastern Ukraine, and Russia’s
growing threat to NATO in Eastern Europe. Trump, on the other hand, has
praised Putin’s “strong” leadership at home, called NATO “obsolete and
expensive,” and made a point of describing his friendship with
Putin—though it seems to be entirely imaginary.
From the beginning of his candidacy last summer, Trump has repeatedly
claimed that he would “get along very well with Vladimir Putin.” Last
fall, after he was interviewed on the same segment of 60 Minutes as Putin, he warmly referred to the experience of being “stablemates” as “going well.” This was strikingly at odds with reality, since Trump was in the US and Putin in Russia during the interviews, and the two men did not in fact meet...
Picture above: Donald Trump in Syracuse, New York, April 16, 2016; Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, April 14, 2016
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