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Putinism is breeding in the heart of the Republican party | Robert Reich
Putinism is breeding in the heart of the Republican partyRobert ReichMake no mistake: Putin’s authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America. The cold war has already come home The world is frighteningly locked in a battle to the death between democracy and authoritarianism. On Sunday Vladimir Putin issued a new threat to the west – telling his defense minister and his top military commander to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert.It is a new cold war.The biggest difference between the old cold war and the new one is that authoritarian neo-fascism is no longer just an external threat to America and Europe. A version of it is also growing inside western Europe and the US.It has even taken over one of America’s major political parties.The Trump-led Republican party does not openly support Putin, but the Republican party’s animus toward democracy is expressed in ways familiar to Putin and other autocrats.Trump Republicans continue to refuse to acknowledge the outcome of the 2020 election, claiming without evidence that it was “stolen” from Trump. In many states, on the basis of this big lie, they are making it more difficult for people who don’t share their beliefs to vote.In several states they are laying the groundwork for ignoring the popular vote altogether and throwing a future presidential election to Trump or another strongman. They have stopped even pretending to be the party of free speech: they are banning books from schools and prohibiting teachers from talking about America’s struggles against racism and homophobia.Putin’s attack on Ukraine, starting 24 February, and the attack by followers of Donald Trump on the United States Capitol on 6 January 2021 are different, of course, but they resemble one another in their contempt for democratic institutions and their attempts to justify violence by asserting a threat to a dominant racial or ethnic group.Each also represents the logical culmination of leadership by a dangerous narcissist who flagrantly lies about his intentions and his opponents and who sees the world only in terms of his personal power.Donald Trump has long admired Vladimir Putin who, evidence shows, personally authorized a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Trump in the 2016 US presidential election. Believing that a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s strategic objectives, Russia’s spy agencies were ordered to use “all possible force” to ensure Trump’s victory.Again in the 2020 election, according to a recently unclassified report by the US office of the Director of National Intelligence, Putin authorized “influence operations” aimed at “supporting Trump” and “denigrating President Biden’s candidacy”.Presumably Putin supported Trump in 2016 and in 2020 in part because of Trump’s disdain for Nato. As president, Trump did all he could to undermine the organization, even suggesting the US should withdraw from it. Is it pure coincidence that once Trump was out of office and Nato remained intact, Putin attacked Ukraine?Defending democracy and standing up against authoritarian neo-fascism requires courage. In 2019, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, refused Trump’s demand for help in rigging the 2020 election in the United States, even after Trump threatened to withhold money Congress had appropriated to help Ukraine resist Russian expansion.Today, Zelenskiy won’t be bullied by Putin. He turned down America’s offer to evacuate him, saying: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”Zelenskiy’s courage in the face of overwhelming brute force has fortified Ukrainians now defending their country against invaders.Contrast this with the toadies at the Republican National Committee who in February censured Republican representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for participating in Congress’s select committee investigating the events of 6 January, and who called the attack on the Capitol “legitimate political discourse”.Also contrast Zelenskiy’s courage with most elected Republicans who still refuse to stand up to Trump. On Sunday, on national television, Senator Tom Cotton refused four times to condemn Trump for calling Putin “smart” and “savvy” and Nato and the US “dumb”.Make no mistake: Putin’s authoritarian neo-fascism has rooted itself in America.It may be possible to prevent Putin’s aggression from spreading to the rest of Europe. But it is not possible to win a cold civil war inside America without destroying the United States – another of Putin’s objectives when he ordered his spy agencies to help Trump.In the months and years ahead, those of us in the west who believe in democracy, the rule of law, human rights and truth, must do everything we can to win back our fellow countrymen to these same overriding values.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
TopicsRepublicansOpinionVladimir PutinDonald TrumpUS politicscommentReuse this content More Learning Lessons in Ukraine and Beyond
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the international condemnation it has generated contains key lessons for policymakers. They are lessons that should have been learned in past global crises but weren’t. However, the Ukraine crisis offers an opportunity to correct that mistake.
International Law
A first lesson is that failure to firmly stand up to violations of international law as they occur convinces trespassers that they can get away with them. It emboldens violators to commit ever more flagrant infringements. Kicking the can down the road by failing to immediately and firmly respond to violations amounts to allowing an open wound to fester. The longer the wound festers, the more difficult, costly and risky it is to cure.
The last 14 years of Putin’s rule are a case in point. Putin began the recreation of his Russian world in 2008 when he recognized the two Georgian breakaway republics of Abkhazia and North Ossetia. The recognition constituted the first step in Putin’s defining of Russia’s borders in civilizational rather than international legal terms.
Ukraine’s Tug of War and the Implications for Europe
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Putin has made no bones about the fact that he sees territories populated by Russian speakers and adherents of Russian culture as the determinants of Russia’s borders, not international law. Ever since 2008, he has demonstrated his willingness to enforce his definition of Russia’s border with military might.
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Back then, the international community effectively looked the other way. The failure to stand up to Putin emboldened him six years later to annex Crimea, which is legally part of Ukraine, and foster insurgencies in the Ukrainian republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. The United States and Europe responded by slapping Putin’s wrists. The sanctions imposed at the time did little to stop the Russian leader from increasing his war chest or making the cost of continued pursuit of his strongman tactics too costly and risky.
This month’s Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted from the international community’s failure to draw a line in the sand back in 2008 or at the latest in 2014. “The Russian aggression is the result of years of appeasement of Russia by many countries,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
Human Rights Abuse
Russia is the most dramatic, most recent example of the cost of not responding firmly and unequivocally to infringements of international law as they occur. Other examples are numerous. They include the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and the subsequent military coup in Myanmar, the 2013 toppling of Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president in a takeover by the armed forces, the meek response to the brutal repression of Uyghur Muslims in China, the increasingly blatant discrimination and disenfranchisement of Muslims in India, and missed opportunities to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to name a few.
All of these examples, like Ukraine, contain lessons the international community asserted that it had learned from World War II. They all contain a lesson that should have been learned long before Ukraine but is undeniably evident in the Eastern European crisis: Abetting violations of human rights encourages and emboldens violations of sovereign, national, ethnic, religious, cultural and gender rights.
Back in 1989, Genocide Watch Director Greg Stanton warned then-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana that “if you don’t do something to prevent genocide in your country, there is going to be a genocide within five years.” Five years later, there was genocide in Rwanda. It is a word of warning that echoes in predictions by Indian journalist Rana Ayyub that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies could lead to large-scale violence against the country’s 200-million Muslims, the world’s largest Muslim minority.
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It is a warning that reverberates in the contrast between the reception and welcome that European states are justifiably according to refugees from Ukraine compared to the rejection of earlier waves of refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. A Moroccan journalist posted a video on Twitter of students from the Arab world and Africa watching buses on the Ukrainian-Polish border pick up Ukrainians every 15 minutes but transporting people from countries beyond Europe only every four hours. The journalist, Anas Daif, reported some students have been stranded for four days on the border trying to escape the war.
Freedom of Expression
In a similar vein, prominent BBC journalist Lyse Doucet, reporting from Kyiv, highlighted the fact that humans in distress are humans in distress irrespective of their ethnicity or religion. In a video message, she explained that her reporting on the current crisis in Ukraine prevented her from personally accepting in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil the 2022 Shifa Gardi Award named after a journalist killed in 2017 in Iraq by a roadside bomb.
“If anyone knows about the pain and hardship of living with war, it’s the people of Iraq, of Kurdistan. And if anyone knows what it’s like to live in a war that never seems to end, of living with powerful neighbors, and the importance of independent journalism, it is the Kurdish people,” Doucet said.
Doucet’s message brought it all together: the linkages between failing to stand up early and firmly to flagrant violations of international law, abuse of human rights and suppression of freedom of expression. Kurds formed the bulk of thousands of desperate refugees in Belarus who were trying to cross the border into Poland just four months ago. In contrast to Ukrainians being welcomed with blankets, cots, clothing and hot meals, the Kurds were brutally beaten back as they sought to storm the borders.
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Iraq, Syria and Turkey may have been different places if Kurdish national and/or cultural rights, which Kurds have asserted for more than a century, had been honored. Instead, the international community abetted repressive policies of both autocratic and democratic governments. Similarly, Ukraine would have been a different place if the international community had stood up to Putin from day one.
War in Europe Is Nothing New
It would also be a different place if Europeans had less of a sense of superiority. Many have expressed shock that “this could happen in 21st-century Europe.” Europeans would be better served to recognize that their continent is as prone to conflict as are other parts of the world.
Ukraine is not the first such incident in Europe. It was preceded by the brutal conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and the wars of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s that, three decades later, could erupt again. That realization may be seeping in. “War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” wrote Telegraph journalist Peter Hannan.
It’s never too late to learn lessons. The world is finally standing up to Vladimir Putin. Yet there is little indication that the broader lessons Ukraine offers are finally being learned.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
Sanctions as America’s Universal Response to Evil (and Anything Else)
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We invite readers to join us by submitting their suggestions of words and expressions that deserve exploring, with or without original commentary. To submit a citation from the news and/or provide your own short commentary, send us an email.
February 25: Appetite
Is it justified to think that nations have personalities, along with tastes, fears and desires? People do. But can we assume there is an equivalence between the demonstrable inclinations of a national government and the needs, ambitions and predilections of the people in a democracy? It appears ever more obvious that the political class — increasingly perceived as an isolated elite in modern societies — is less representative of and responsive to the people who elect its leaders and officials than to the economic and cultural elite those politicians tend to associate and identify with.
Beware of Dying Empires, an African Warns
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In a Los Angeles Times article on the Kremlin’s view of international sanctions, David Pierson and Sam Dean seek to explain how the West has been elaborating an effective strategy designed to counter Russia’s militarily assault on Ukraine. “With no appetite for military confrontation,” they write, “the U.S. and its allies are relying on sweeping economic sanctions to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull out of Ukraine.”
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Most people would find this sentence a reasonable description of the American reaction to events in Eastern Europe. The comforting message is that the West has no interest in war. The damage and suffering caused by this war can be blamed on one government and indeed one man, Vladimir Putin.
But does it make any sense to talk of an “appetite” when speaking of the foreign policy of a nation? If the metaphor of a nation’s appetite has any factual foundation in the realm of foreign policy, the history of the United States over at least the past three-quarters of a century reveals an aptitude of American leaders for war in all its forms, which may or may not reflect an appetite or even a craving of its leaders.
Recent decades have revealed a proclivity of the American political class to toggle between physical warfare itself — which traditionally pitted trained and equipped armies against each other — and economic warfare directed against entire civilian populations. The latter has recently been deemed by political leaders to be more humane, even though it spreads suffering wider and disproportionately affects uncounted masses of people not remotely involved in wartime aggression or any of the practices cited to justify going to war.
In 1996, when Madeleine Albright, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, was asked about the death of 500,000 Iraqi children due to US sanctions, she said “the price is worth it.” This reflects the kind of political calculus that counts half a million lives not as a tragedy, but as a “price,” something to be evaluated in purely monetary terms. In moral terms, Albright was counting on a form of specious reasoning that says if we haven’t directly sought to kill those children, we bear no responsibility. Their sacrifice is thus of no concern.
A similar form of reasoning led to the policy privileged at least since Barack Obama’s presidency of seeing drone warfare as humane because it is “clean,” to the extent that it precludes any risk to the “good guys” (ourselves) doing the killing. If only bad people are being killed, war appears to be humane and possibly as fun as playing a video game.
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So now The Los Angeles Times wants us to accept the idea that American leaders have “no appetite for military confrontation” in the current Ukraine drama. Apart from the irrelevance of the question of appetite, that idea is contestable for another reason. In this case, it isn’t a question of desire, aptitude, proclivity or even ingrained habit. The unwillingness to mount a military operation is due to the simple fact that the United States has no legal justification for engaging in physical war with Russia, which has not threatened US security or the security of any NATO nation.
Invoking the idea of appetite is disingenuous. Had Ukraine achieved its goal of joining NATO, no one doubts that there would have been plenty of appetite, even a devouring hunger, at least on the part of the military-industrial complex in the US, who are nevertheless actively supplying weapons. Any war is good for business, even a war the US is not allowed to engage in directly. This one, which holds the promise of reinforcing NATO thanks to the magnified fear of Russia, already makes good economic sense for the defense industry at home. That stimulates a lot of appetites. And for the past five years, mainstream Democrats have plenty to munch on after doing everything in their power to enforce the belief that Vladimir Putin is Satan incarnate.
The complementary question The Times authors raise of “relying on sweeping economic sanctions” to wage war is more ambiguous. Sanctions can be, and in this case are very likely to be, a two-edged sword, even if it’s the only sword left in the armory due to the rules surrounding NATO defense. Disturbing the flow of global commerce entails a raft of unintended and often unanalyzed consequences for all parties concerned.
What is clear, however, is that US administrations have in recent decades developed not so much an appetite as a craving for applying sanctions in every direction whenever anything displeases them in the behavior of any country in the world. Sanctions have become the essential pheromone of the world’s unique hegemon, intent on leaving its odor in every nook, cranny, crevice or just bare wall of the global economy.
Why Monitoring Language Is Important
Language allows people to express thoughts, theories, ideas, experiences and opinions. But even while doing so, it also serves to obscure what is essential for understanding the complex nature of reality. When people use language to hide essential meaning, it is not only because they cynically seek to prevaricate or spread misinformation. It is because they strive to tell the part or the angle of the story that correlates with their needs and interests.
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In the age of social media, many of our institutions and pundits proclaim their intent to root out “misinformation.” But often, in so doing, they are literally seeking to miss information.
Is there a solution? It will never be perfect, but critical thinking begins by being attentive to two things: the full context of any issue we are trying to understand and the operation of language itself. In our schools, we are taught to read and write, but, unless we bring rhetoric back into the standard curriculum, we are never taught how the power of language to both convey and distort the truth functions. There is a largely unconscious but observable historical reason for that negligence. Teaching establishments and cultural authorities fear the power of linguistic critique may be used against their authority.
Remember, Fair Observer’s Language and the News seeks to sensitize our readers to the importance of digging deeper when assimilating the wisdom of our authorities, pundits and the media that transmit their knowledge and wisdom.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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US condemns Putin nuclear deterrence order but cautiously welcomes talks report
US condemns Putin nuclear deterrence order but cautiously welcomes talks report
Psaki: Russia ‘manufacturing threats to justify aggression’
Analysis: Nuclear posturing requires west to tread carefully
Ukraine crisis – live coverage
The Biden administration on Sunday condemned Vladimir Putin’s decision to place Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert. The White House also faced growing calls from senior Republicans to target Russia’s energy sector with new sanctions.Vladimir Putin puts Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alertRead moreAs Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its fourth day, the US also expressed guarded optimism over talks between delegations from the two countries set to take place inside Ukraine, near the Belarusian border, on Monday.Speaking on ABC’s This Week, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, described the nuclear deterrence announcement as an example of Putin “manufacturing threats that don’t exist in order to justify further aggression”.In televised comments, Putin said he had ordered “the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty”, due to “aggressive statements” from Nato leaders. Analysts told the Guardian that while the order itself was not immediately clear, it was not indicative of preparation for a first strike.Psaki said: “At no point has Russia been under threat from Nato, has Russia been under threat from Ukraine, this is all a pattern from President Putin. And we’re going to stand up for it. We have the ability to defend ourselves, but we also need to call out what we’re seeing here from President Putin.”Biden administration officials expressed tentative support for planned talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, as announced by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.The US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told CNN’s State of the Union the US would “look forward to what comes out of those discussions.“As you know … we leaned in on diplomacy with the Russians throughout this process and we hoped that Putin would find a way to the negotiating table and he made the unfortunate decision of aggression over diplomacy.”Pressed on whether she believed the talks announcement indicated a good faith effort on behalf of Russia, Thomas Greenfield responded: “I can’t get into Putin’s head or into Russian reasoning, so it remains to be seen.”The talks announcement was tentatively welcomed by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who told CNN he had “absolute and full confidence” in Zelenskiy’s judgment on “whether it is right to sit down and find a political solution”.But Stoltenberg also expressed concerns about Russia’s motivations.“It remains to be seen whether Russia is really willing to make some serious compromises and also to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine,” he said.Stoltenberg characterized Putin’s decision to order Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert as “dangerous rhetoric” and “a behaviour that is irresponsible”.The Biden administration has issued tough sanctions, targeting banks and the finances of some Russian oligarchs as well as restricting export of vital technologies key to Russian military and economic development.Over the weekend, the US and its European allies announced plans to target the Russian central bank’s foreign reserves and to block selected Russian financial institutions from the Swift messaging system for international payments.00:48But the sanctions have not yet targeted oil and gas exports, which reportedly accounted for 36% of Russia’s annual budget last year. That has lead to criticism both inside the Ukraine and in the US.On Sunday Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas and a prominent foreign policy hawk, urged the administration to continue to amplify sanctions.“It’s time for the president and some of our European partners to quit pussyfooting around,” he told ABC. “The financial sanctions announced last night are riddled with loopholes.”Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidRead moreCotton was also grilled on Donald Trump’s stance on the war. Trump, who often praised Putin while he was in the White House, finally condemned the invasion during a speech on Saturday night, but also continued to praise the Russian leader.Cotton refused four times to condemn or comment on Trump’s record.The Biden administration has not ruled out further sanctions and has alluded to further measures being taken as the war progresses.“The purpose of the sanctions are to put as much pressure on the Russian economy as possible. And we want to do as much as we can to protect the impact on our own economy,” Thomas-Greenfield said.“But we’re continuing to look at new and even harsher measures against the Russians.”TopicsUkraineRussiaEuropeUS foreign policyUS national securityUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine
Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine
Stephanopoulos tries repeatedly to prise comment from him
Trump hints at 2024 presidential bid in CPAC speech
The Republican senator Tom Cotton refused four times on Sunday to condemn or even comment on Donald Trump’s repeated praise for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine.Vladimir Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power | Vladimir SorokinRead more“If you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week, “I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.”The former president’s views are clear. Trump has repeatedly praised Putin and though at CPAC on Saturday he condemned the invasion, he again called the Russian leader “smart”.Cotton, from Arkansas, is a military veteran and foreign policy hawk with reputed presidential ambitions from the hard Republican right. His host on ABC, George Stephanopoulos, tried repeatedly to prise comment from him. Cotton was happy to condemn Putin and praise Ukrainian bravery – and to criticise US allies in Europe.“I know that they say they sanctioned 80% of the banks in Russia,” he said. “Well, Vladimir Putin controls 100% of the banks in Russia. He can use the other 20% to continue to finance his war machine.“It’s time to remove all Russian financial institutions from the international payment system. It’s time to impose sanctions on his oil and gas exports, which he uses as his primary means of financial support.”Stephanopoulos cited Trump calling Putin “smart” and “savvy” and “say[ing] Nato and the US are dumb”, and asked: “Are you prepared to condemn that kind of rhetoric from the leader of your party?”Cotton said: “George, you heard what I had to say about Vladimir Putin. That he is a ruthless dictator who’s launched a naked, unprovoked war of aggression.“Thankfully, the Ukrainian army has anti-tank missiles that President Obama would not supply, that we did supply last time Republicans were in charge in Washington. That’s why it’s so urgent that we continue to supply those weapons to Ukraine.”Stephanopoulos asked: “Why can’t you condemn Donald Trump for those comments?”Cotton said: “George, if you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic, I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.“I speak on behalf of Arkansans, who I talked to this week and who are appalled at what they saw in Ukraine and they want me right now to fight in Washington to support those brave Ukrainians.”Stephanopoulos said: “You’re a senior member of the Republican party. Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican party. He said last night again, suggested that he’d be running for president. When Fox News asked him if he had a message for Vladimir Putin, he said he has no message.“Why can’t you condemn that? I feel quite confident that if … a Barack Obama or Joe Biden said something like that, you’d be first in line to criticise him.”Cotton said: “Again, George, if you want to talk to the former president about his views or his message, you can have him on your show.“My message to Vladimir Putin is quite clear. He needs to leave Ukraine unless he wants to face moms and teenagers with Molotov cocktails and grandmothers and grandfathers with AK-47s for years to come.”Stephanopoulos varied his line of attack, asking: “If Donald Trump runs again, can you support him?”But Cotton wasn’t for picking.‘Leaders lead during crises’ – but Biden’s approval rating hits new low, poll findsRead more“George,” he said, “I’m not worried about this fall’s elections right now, much less an election two years from now. I’m focused on the naked war of aggression that Vladimir Putin has launched in Ukraine right now. There’s not a moment to lose. We can worry about electoral politics down the road.”Stephanopoulos tried once more.“Former President Trump was out there talking about it last night. I simply don’t understand why you can’t condemn his praise of Vladimir Putin.”“George,” said Cotton, “again, I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can all speak for themselves.”Cotton’s refusal to criticise Trump – who has few critics in Congress and retains control of the Republican party – was not unique among Republicans but it was widely noted online.Reed Galen, a former Republican strategist now part of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, wrote: “Tom Cotton is wily, like a Fennec fox. He’ll come up, look around, listen, then skitter back into his hole until the time is right.”TopicsRepublicansDonald TrumpVladimir PutinRussiaUkraineUS politicsEuropenewsReuse this content More - in US Politics
Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bid
Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidEx-president tells CPAC he could have stopped ‘appalling’ Russian invasion of Ukraine before giving strongest indication he will run again Donald Trump, the former US president, has defended his description of Russia’s Vladimir Putin as “smart” while seeking to blunt accusations that he admires the invasion of Ukraine.Trump reiterated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen by voter fraud as he argued that the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he was still in the White House.“The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling,” he told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday night. “It’s an outrage and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur.“We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine. God bless them all. As everyone understands, this horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president.”The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracyRead moreElection officials, numerous judges and Trump’s own attorney general found no evidence that the election was rigged. Having retold “the big lie”, he went on to compare himself favourably with other presidents’ handling of Putin.“Under Bush, Russia invaded Georgia. Under Obama, Russia took Crimea. Under Biden, Russia invaded Ukraine. I stand as the only president of the 21st century on whose watch Russia did not invade another country.”Democrats dismissed the speech and condemned Trump for still cosying up to Putin. Adonna Biel, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “After spending four years selling out Ukraine, the defeated former president took the stage at CPAC to double down on his shameless praise for Putin as innocent Ukrainians shelter from bombs and missiles at the hands of Russia.“This has been the theme of the Republican party all week, making clear that their party is beholden to a defeated former president who lost them the White House, House, and Senate.”An audience of about 5,000 people at CPAC, the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives, roared and whistled their approval. Some chanted: “USA! USA!”Trump, whose “America first” approach rattled Nato allies, claimed that Russia and other countries respected the US when he was president and blamed Joe Biden for displaying weakness on the global stage.“I have no doubt that President Putin made his decision to ruthlessly attack Ukraine only after watching the pathetic withdrawal from Afghanistan, where the military was taken out first, our soldiers were killed and American hostages, plus $85bn worth of the finest equipment anywhere in the world were left behind,” he said.Trump, who notoriously deferred to autocrats, also responded to criticism over his description this week of Putin’s invasion of separatist areas of Ukraine as “genius”, “savvy” and “smart”.He asserted that Putin has suffered no repercussions beyond sanctions, which he has shrugged off for 25 years. “The problem is not that Putin is smart – which of course, he’s smart – but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb. They’ve so far allowed him to get away with this travesty and an assault on humanity.”He added: “So sad. Putin is playing Biden like a drum and it’s not a pretty thing as somebody that loves our country to watch.”Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign had more than 100 contacts with Russia, prompting a special counsel investigation that stopped short of alleging direct collusion. As president, Trump was notoriously reluctant to condemn Putin and, at a summit in Helsinki, took the Russian leader’s word over that of his own intelligence agencies. His administration did impose some sanctions on Moscow, however.Trump recalled on Saturday: “I was with Putin a lot. I spent a lot of time with him. I got along with him … I did a lot of things that were very tough on Russia. No president was ever as tough on Russia as I was.“But with respect to what’s going on now, it would have been so easy for me to stop this travesty from happening. He understood me and he understood that I didn’t play games. This would not have happened. Someday, I’ll tell you exactly what we talked about. And he did have an affinity, there’s no question about it, for Ukraine. I said, never let it happen, better not let it happen.”He added: “I also warned Nato about the danger of Russia and look at the consequences. On foreign policy, the world rightly had a healthy fear that as president I would stand strong for Americans’ priorities.”During an 85-minute speech to a packed ballroom at CPAC, Trump, who contested the 2016 and 2020 elections, also gave his strongest hint yet that he will run for president in 2024. “We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” he said. “We’re going to be doing it again a third time.”Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White HouseRead moreThere were loud cheers from the crowd, many of whom wore “Make America great again” caps and “Trump 2024” regalia. There were shouts of “Four more years!” and “We want Trump!”The former president went on to rail against “leftwing tyranny” and “crackdowns, censorship and cancel culture”, praise protesting Canadian truckers and brand Biden’s supreme court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, “a radical left zealot”. He claimed that the court’s existing justices, including conservative Brett Kavanaugh, are “terrified of the radical left” and “afraid to do the right thing”.Trump pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that his 2016 election rival, “Crooked” Hillary Clinton, spied on him, prompting chants of “Lock her up!” And he accused Democrats of caring more about Ukraine’s borders than America’s own.He declared: “You could take the five worst presidents in American history and put them together and they would not do the damage that Joe Biden’s administration has done in just a very short period.”TopicsDonald TrumpCPACUS politicsUkraineVladimir PutinReuse this content More
