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Russia Expert: Putin Wants Trump Back in the WH [1]

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Date: 2023-12-21  

This may seem somewhat like a “the sun rose in the east this morning” diary, but it’s important to keep this story in the American consciousness: Trump was a Russian asset, is still a Russian asset, and Putin will try again, as he did in 2016, to help Trump become president.

Putin has even more incentive this time than in 2016, because now he is at war with Ukraine, a war which has turned into a major mess for him because Joe Biden made it so. Putin is counting on Trump to help him get out of it and let him keep as much of Ukraine as he can.

Trump’s own Russia expert, Fiona Hill, made this point clear: Putin ‘has Trump’s number’ and still sees him ‘as an asset’, says Fiona Hill (The Guardian, 21 Dec 2023):

“That’s literally [Putin’s] trump card,” Hill told the One Decision Podcast, hosted by Jane Ferguson, a reporter, and Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, when asked if she thought the Russian president, bogged down in war in Ukraine, was betting on Trump beating Joe Biden next year and returning to power.

And when Putin bets, he cheats.

Hill also restated another obvious point that still bears repeating over and over:

“And, you know, obviously, Putin has had Trump’s number for some time, he knows how to manipulate him … he has been very good at the art of flattery with Trump. He sees Trump as an asset in many respects.”

I used to wonder why Putin would push for someone so unstable as Trump to be in charge of the nuclear weapons pointed at Russia. Hill thinks Putin is aware of that and believes he can handle it:

Hill told One Decision that because Trump “can be extraordinary, unpredictable … Putin probably has to tread very carefully, in fact, not to insult him, and not to kind of cross lines [because] Trump … lives for himself”.

Which means that Putin is going to help Trump through his usual old tricks:

But, she said, “Putin is pretty confident that he can stoke up the culture wars here, there and everywhere. And just with a little bit of deft use of political influence operations and propaganda, he can keep things that are moving in his direction already, moving in his direction.

Trump has tried to inoculate himself from the charge of Putin’s interference by misusing the Mueller report and by generally denouncing all efforts to point out the truth. Trump has panned Hill before, calling her

“a deep state stiff with a nice accent.”

Putin has his fingers elsewhere in Washington, as we all know; the GOP-controlled House has noticeably cooled on Ukrainian aid. And it’s possible that should any Republican become president in 2025, they would help Putin out, if only to placate the increasingly isolationist trend in the US. So it is important for us to expose Putin on all fronts and make it clear just how much an enemy he is of everything the United States stands for.

This starts by hammering Trump on the Russia connection.

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