Combative Trump Pulls His Punches for One Man: Putin
While Mr. Trump adamantly denies any collusion between his team
and Russia during the campaign, an email sent to his son, Donald Trump Jr., last summer setting up a meeting with a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties said the visit was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Mr. Trump lately has tried to argue that Russia actually worked against his campaign because he has moved to increase military spending
and energy supplies and that, if anything, it was Mrs. Clinton who had the support of the Kremlin.
“It is outrageous that he would thank Putin for anything, given everything Putin has done to attack American sovereignty
and how poorly the Russian government has treated American personnel posted in Russia,” said Evelyn Farkas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former deputy assistant defense secretary under Mr. Obama.
In the years leading up to his election, Mr. Trump expressed repeated praise for Mr. Putin, calling him “so nice”
and a “strong leader” who was doing an “amazing job.” When interviewers asked him about the killing of so many opposition leaders and journalists, Mr. Trump has brushed it off by saying even the United States has engaged in killing.
Mr. Trump has long expressed admiration for Mr. Putin even as American politicians of both parties have denounced the Russian leader for fomenting
a separatist war in Ukraine, trying to destabilize the West, bolstering President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and collaborating with Iran.
