Why Trump Cares About Dictators – The Atlantic

Donald Trump's affection for oppressive and bloodthirsty dictators has become so familiar that it is difficult to acknowledge, and yet so bizarre that it is not appreciated or even believed.

However, sometimes a vivid memory surfaces. That was the case this week, as stories from Bob Woodward's upcoming book, War, became public. In the book, the legendary reporter writes that in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Trump prioritized Vladimir Putin's health over that of Americans and sent Russian President Abbott COVID testing machines for his personal use at a time when the Machines were hard to come by and were urgently needed. (The Kremlin confirmed the story; Trump's campaign vaguely denied it.) Meanwhile, Trump told people in the United States to simply test less. So much for “America First.”

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“Please don’t tell anyone you sent these to me,” Putin told Trump, according to Woodward.

“I don’t care,” Trump said. “Fine.”

“No, no,” Putin said. “I don’t want you to tell anyone because then people will get mad at you, not me. They don’t care about me.”

U.S. relations with Russia have deteriorated since Trump left office, particularly since Russia launched a brutal and grueling invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, according to Woodward, the former president has remained in touch with Putin. “There have been several phone calls between Trump and Putin, perhaps as many as seven, since Trump left the White House in 2021.”

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Trump's public line on the war in Ukraine is that Putin would never have invaded on his watch because of his strength. Yet evidence continues to mount that Trump is weak to any overtures to Putin—that Putin can get Trump to do what he wants, and has done so time and time again. It happened when Trump sided with Putin over US intelligence at the terrible Helsinki summit in 2018, it happened when he refused to bring up election interference during a phone call in 2019, and it happened when Putin Tricked Trump into covering up the U.S. Secret Service's transmission of testing equipment. If Trump is so effective at pressuring Putin, and he remains in contact with him to this day, why doesn't he use that influence to pressure Russia to withdraw and end the war?

Putin is hardly alone. Trump's record shows a consistent pattern of pandering to dictators, while in return they do little or nothing to benefit America. Russia's apparent attempts to interfere in the 2016 election by hacking and leaking emails from the Democratic National Committee – immediately after Trump publicly called for it – is a rare example of reciprocity, if not to the benefit of the nation. Trump was drawn to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, even though Erdoğan blithely resisted Trump's calls to stop an invasion of Syria and bought Russian weapons despite U.S. objections. Trump also can't say enough good things about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (unless he confuses his country with Iran), but despite a spectacular summit with Kim, he has failed to achieve nuclear disarmament.

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Some people still seem unwilling to believe that Trump admires these dictators, even though he keeps telling us so. During his first term, his advisers tried to hide that affection by warning him in writing before calling Putin after a corrupt election: “DON'T CONGRATULATE.” (He did, of course.) When Putin warned Trump about spreading COVID By not disclosing the tests, he showed that he understands domestic political dynamics better than the American president. Yet Trump continues to blurt out his love for authoritarians, including in a very strange moment during the presidential debate last month. Kamala Harris accused her of “world leaders laughing at Donald Trump.”

“Let me just tell you about world leaders,” he replied. “Viktor Orbán, one of the most respected men – he is called a strong man. He is a tough person. Clever. Prime Minister of Hungary. Said: Why is the whole world exploding? This wasn't the case three years ago. Why does it explode? He said: Because you need Trump back as president.”

Orbán is not universally respected – he is a pariah, or at least a nuisance, in most parts of the world. (Lest there be any doubt that Trump understands who Orbán is, he helpfully referred to the Hungarian's reputation as a strongman.) Orbán's support is not reassuring – my colleague Franklin Foer described some of his damage to Hungary in 2019 – and the Moment shows how easily Trump can be manipulated through flattery.

Many people continue to believe that stories about Trump's collusion and ties to Russia during the 2016 election campaign were a hoax. This appears to be an unfortunate byproduct of the fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was unable to prove a criminal conspiracy. But the evidence of improper ties with Russia was already in the public domain long before Mueller completed his report. Not only was it not a hoax back then, but Woodward's reporting shows that Trump's secret dealings with the Kremlin continue to this day.

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Commentators once seemed puzzled and confused by Trump's love of dictators because it ran counter to typical American notions of the rule of law and reverence for the Constitution and the country's founding fathers, not to mention the country's interests.

But there is no reason to be confused anymore. Trump tried to overturn an election he lost; He denies that he lost – although he did so conclusively – and he accepted that violence was used to stay in power. He feels no remorse for this attack on American democracy. He has said he wants to be dictator on the first day of his second term, and although he claims that is a joke, he has also floated the idea of ​​suspending the constitution. Should he return to office, his legal team has persuaded the Supreme Court to grant him immunity for anything that could plausibly be construed as official conduct. Trump is drawn to dictators — he admires their power, their inability to ever lose — and he wants to be one.