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Donald Trump is becoming Vladimir Putin: Hartcher · The Morning Edition

0:07
S1: An increasing number of American commentators and politicians, including Republicans,
0:12
S1: are becoming vocal in their opposition to Donald Trump's assistance
0:15
S1: of Russia and the country's dictator, Vladimir Putin, which have
0:20
S1: become more pronounced in the last two weeks. They say,
0:23
S1: variously that Ronald Reagan would be rolling in his grave,
0:26
S1: that Trump is just plain evil. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris,
0:31
S1: and you're listening to The Morning Edition from The Sydney
0:33
S1: Morning Herald and The Age. Today, political and international editor
0:38
S1: Peter Hartcher on how Donald Trump is not only coddling
0:42
S1: Vladimir Putin, he's becoming Vladimir Putin. Peter, welcome back to
0:51
S1: the podcast.
0:52
S2: Pleasure to be here, Samantha.
0:53
S1: Okay. Let's start with a big question. Is Donald Trump
0:56
S1: creating a de facto alliance with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin
1:00
S1: because Trump is facing accusations that he has recently helped
1:04
S1: Putin in more substantive ways than he has previously.
1:08
S2: Just in the last two weeks, he has completely abandoned
1:13
S2: any pretense at being even handed in any way. And
1:17
S2: we know that he's had a long running sympathies for Putin,
1:21
S2: but he is now blatantly acting to align U.S. policy
1:27
S2: with Putin's interests. And his primary foreign policy interest, of course,
1:31
S2: is to defeat, destroy and occupy Ukraine. And Trump is
1:36
S2: doing a great deal now, quite openly to help him.
1:41
S3: Ukraine's capital hit without warning. But the second night, Russian
1:48
S3: ballistic missiles have hit Ukraine without advance notice from the
1:52
S3: white House.
1:53
S4: Ukraine's missile and drone alert system, via Elon Musk's Starlink
1:57
S4: and its military spin off Star Shield, was throttled suddenly
2:01
S4: without warning. Do you think he has deliberately turned the
2:06
S4: speed down on Starlink to damage it?
2:08
S5: I'm sure that they knew what they did. Absolutely.
2:17
S2: So is that a de facto alliance? I would suggest it.
2:20
S2: It is not. All of it is. He sort of
2:24
S2: loud and proud about the deliberate decision for the Starlink
2:29
S2: satellite terminals to operate, connecting with drones, flying at lower
2:34
S2: speeds to inhibit Ukraine's ability to intercept incoming Russian missiles
2:40
S2: and drones. He didn't want to admit to that, and
2:43
S2: neither did Elon Musk. They both pretended that it was
2:47
S2: some sort of organic thing that just happened, Musk said.
2:49
S2: It was Trump. Trump said it wasn't him, just happened
2:52
S2: in the ether. We now know, courtesy of the reporting
2:56
S2: in The Wall Street Journal, that the two men, Trump
2:59
S2: and Musk talked at least once before that decision was made. So.
3:05
S2: And that Musk also talked to other members of the
3:07
S2: administration before making that decision. So the strong suspicion is
3:11
S2: it is Musk was telling the truth. It was at
3:15
S2: Trump's behest that they did that. So he's not proud
3:17
S2: of it all. Yeah, there's some of it he seems
3:20
S2: to be a bit ashamed of and not wanting to
3:22
S2: admit to. But if you look at the range of
3:24
S2: actions he's taken, I would say I would say there
3:29
S2: is a de facto alliance, but I'd add this important rider.
3:33
S2: I don't think that's his motive. I don't think that's
3:37
S2: the the motive force behind these decisions. I don't think
3:42
S2: he wants to align U.S. policy with Russia. I think
3:45
S2: it's just his very special, very peculiar and very particular
3:50
S2: relationship that he has with Putin.
3:53
S1: Yeah, yeah. We're going to get into that. I'd say
3:56
S1: just in just a moment. But I did want to
3:58
S1: ask you one thing whether even if it isn't his
4:01
S1: intention or his desire to ally with Russia in a
4:05
S1: foreign policy way, that it is having real world impacts.
4:07
S1: Because on Tuesday, Australian time, Trump said in an interview
4:11
S1: that Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine because Russia.
4:15
S6: Frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven't been doing much.
4:19
S6: And the same thing.
4:20
S1: With, you know, even as Ukrainian civilian casualties from Russian
4:23
S1: attacks have reached new heights, rising by 85% last month
4:27
S1: compared with the year before, at least according to the
4:29
S1: United Nations. And some listeners will have seen the really
4:33
S1: horrifying images of a toddler dead in her stroller on
4:36
S1: October 20th and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. He said
4:40
S1: that the toddler and her mother and five others were killed.
4:43
S1: Five other people were killed in a Russian strike in
4:46
S1: Kharkiv in a park, and this would have been after
4:49
S1: Ukraine began having less reliable support from Starlink, you know,
4:53
S1: which enables Ukraine to to battle Russia's drone missiles. So
4:57
S1: it is having a real impact, isn't it?
4:59
S2: Yes it is. And to say that the Russians have
5:02
S2: been fine is an extraordinary redefinition, really, of what our
5:09
S2: war crimes into Trump speak are acceptable behavior, apart from
5:16
S2: the fact that one of the sets of targets that
5:19
S2: Putin has, has always emphasized from day one are civilian targets.
5:25
S2: Apart from that war crime, people have forgotten some of
5:29
S2: the other atrocities that Putin has committed. The kidnapping of
5:32
S2: somewhere between 10,000 children and 20,000 children from Ukraine, seizing
5:38
S2: Ukrainian children from their homes and families, exporting them to Russia,
5:42
S2: implanting them with Russian families to to brainwash them and
5:46
S2: bring them up. Uh, I mean, this is also a
5:50
S2: war crime. And there are others. So Trump is just
5:55
S2: speaking complete garbage.
5:57
S6: Zelensky is a man that should have had this war
6:00
S6: settled a long time ago, If he would have listened
6:02
S6: to me, he would have made a much better deal
6:04
S6: a long time ago, and he'd have a million people
6:07
S6: living from his side.
6:08
S2: And again, it's more evidence of him bending over backwards
6:13
S2: to not just favor me making excuses for Putin, favoring Putin,
6:20
S2: advancing Putin's reach and power in committing war crimes to
6:25
S2: murder civilians in this illegal war. It is. I mean,
6:30
S2: even after everything we've seen Trump say and do, even
6:34
S2: after four years of this war, it is still shocking
6:36
S2: to hear an American president excusing such horrendous war crimes
6:43
S2: against civilians in such a blatant way when he knows
6:47
S2: the objective reality, he is getting the intelligence. And even
6:50
S2: if he if, even if even if he doesn't believe
6:54
S2: his own intelligence. Do you know what the Russian propaganda
6:57
S2: is saying? No. The Russian state propaganda. They keep quoting
7:00
S2: the number of Ukrainians they've killed in their state news
7:04
S2: reports so far. According to the the the best tallies,
7:09
S2: the Russians are claiming to their own people that they've
7:12
S2: killed more than a million Ukrainians. Ukrainian troops.
7:16
S6: A million people. A tremendous number of people are dead.
7:20
S6: They're losing their male population.
7:23
S2: Ukraine only has about 700,000 troops. Wow. So the Russians
7:26
S2: are claiming to have killed many more troops than than exist?
7:29
S1: Yes. And I mean, you mentioned that, you know, given
7:32
S1: everything that Trump has said and done in particular with Putin,
7:35
S1: but in all kinds of ways, it's it's we can
7:38
S1: still be shocked. And I'll just say to that point
7:40
S1: that even some Republicans are getting shocked now. I saw
7:43
S1: Republican Congressman Don bacon in an interview just the other day.
7:47
S1: He had been on a phone call with Ukrainian President
7:49
S1: Volodymyr Zelensky, and he was discussing what Zelensky had said
7:53
S1: about Starlink and everything. And he said, you know, he
7:55
S1: was just incredulous. This this congressman, he said, we oppose
7:59
S1: a dictator and a war criminal. And I just see
8:00
S1: Ronald Reagan and Ike Eisenhower just rolling in their graves
8:04
S1: right now that a Republican president can disgrace this country
8:07
S1: so bad and puts their lot towards Putin. So yeah,
8:10
S1: perhaps Republicans are, I don't know, they're maybe just waking up,
8:14
S1: I don't know.
8:15
S2: Bacon is not the only one. They're becoming more outspoken. Yes.
8:18
S2: Now that they can see that Trump's power is waning
8:22
S2: and that he's about to become a lame duck after
8:24
S2: the midterms. Yeah, well, at least that's the direction everything
8:27
S2: is trending in. So some of them have found their courage,
8:29
S2: especially the ones who aren't standing for re-election.
8:33
S1: After the break.
8:36
S2: There is so much commonality in those core behaviors that
8:41
S2: I argued that, yes, Trump is turning himself into Vladimir Putin.
8:56
S1: And let's get to your most recent column, because I
8:59
S1: did a bit of digging to find out what your
9:00
S1: your stance on this soul has been in previous years,
9:04
S1: and it was back in March last year that you
9:07
S1: said before many others, I would suggest that Trump acts
9:09
S1: as an agent of Putin. More and more people are
9:12
S1: sort of joining that view, I think. But you now
9:16
S1: argue in your latest piece that, you know, it isn't
9:19
S1: just that Trump is an agent of Putin or is
9:22
S1: allying with him in some way, but he's actually becoming
9:24
S1: Vladimir Putin. How so, Peter?
9:27
S2: Well, a first point is we we got a bit
9:31
S2: of a clue from Volodymyr Zelensky in the last 24 hours,
9:35
S2: where he told the Financial Times that Trump, because he
9:41
S2: was asked to explain why Trump so favors Putin and
9:45
S2: so much more so recently. And Zelensky said Trump just
9:50
S2: likes autocrats and billionaires. He just likes them. He's been
9:55
S2: very open about it. He said it many times. He
9:57
S2: just likes them. So he's saying it's a personal relationship
10:01
S2: and a personal affection that Trump has for Putin. And
10:05
S2: if you if you like someone, especially if you look
10:07
S2: up to that person. And remember, Trump has said on
10:10
S2: many occasions over the years that he respects Putin, that
10:14
S2: he thinks he's doing a great job, that he's a
10:17
S2: great strongman leader for his people and all the rest.
10:20
S2: If you admire and like somebody, um, do you start
10:25
S2: to model your behavior at yourself on them? I would
10:28
S2: suggest that's pretty common in human nature. And further, my second,
10:33
S2: my second point getting to the nub of this is
10:36
S2: that Trump's political, his core political and governing characteristics increasingly
10:44
S2: are those of Vladimir Putin, to the point where there
10:47
S2: is so much commonality in those in those core behaviors
10:51
S2: that I argued that, yes, Trump is turning himself into
10:57
S2: Vladimir Putin.
10:59
S1: Well, I mean, it's a big call. So I want
11:01
S1: you to walk us through the evidence. And I will say,
11:03
S1: having of course read it, there is a lot more
11:06
S1: similarities than perhaps I had previously noticed myself. Peter.
11:10
S2: Before I get to the specifics of politics and governance,
11:15
S2: where the commonalities not only exist, but are increasing and intensifying,
11:19
S2: if anything. One little telltale and sometimes a telltale does
11:24
S2: exactly that is that Trump has hung a portrait of himself,
11:30
S2: a photograph with Putin in the white House prominently. It
11:34
S2: hangs above a photograph of Trump with one of his granddaughters.
11:38
S1: It's incredible.
11:39
S2: Gives you an insight into his priorities. I know the
11:41
S2: 12 points where the where Trump has taken on or
11:46
S2: is taking on Putin's characteristics. First, they both took power
11:51
S2: initially by democratic means and were popular at the outset,
11:54
S2: but gradually become increasingly authoritarian. Two Putin appeals to a
12:01
S2: Russian nostalgia for greatness when their country was great, Soviet
12:04
S2: and all that stuff. Trump with Make America Great Again three.
12:09
S2: Putin has allowed elections to be held even to this day,
12:12
S2: very recently in Russia for the Duma. But he doesn't
12:15
S2: respect democratic principles and make sure that he always wins.
12:20
S2: Trump hasn't succeeded in rigging any elections to date, but
12:24
S2: he's refused to accept his loss. He doesn't accept democratic principles.
12:27
S2: We'll see what happens in the midterms after the midterms
12:29
S2: for Putin rides roughshod over the Russian constitution, continuously expanding
12:34
S2: the president's power at the expense of the parliament and
12:38
S2: the courts. Trump, of course, has done the same thing
12:40
S2: under the so-called unitary executive doctrine. The Russians call it
12:45
S2: the vertical of power. Trump's unitary executive. So his administration
12:51
S2: has ignored 57 of the 165 court rulings against it
12:55
S2: in the first six months of his current term, according
12:57
S2: to a fairly laborious count by The Washington Post. So
13:00
S2: brushing the courts aside five. Putin uses his paramilitary forces
13:06
S2: to repress dissent and intimidate the political enemy and the public. Trump,
13:11
S2: of course, famously deployed National Guard units in Democrat controlled
13:14
S2: cities and allows his not only allows, but encourages his
13:19
S2: Ice officers to use roughhouse tactics on people, including US citizens,
13:24
S2: several of whom have been shot, which Trump always responds
13:27
S2: to with encouragement and praise while blaming the victim. Six.
13:31
S2: Both leaders have created circles of competitive oligarchs around them
13:35
S2: as a way of keeping those multibillionaires in in thrall
13:40
S2: to the president. Seven. While Putin's vision of Russian greatness
13:44
S2: demands territorial conquest of neighbors started with Chechnya, then Georgia,
13:49
S2: now Ukraine, and next, he said he wants to control Europe.
13:53
S2: He said he's at war with Europe, actually. Similarly, Trump
13:57
S2: has said he wants Greenland and Canada threatened to invade Cuba.
14:00
S2: And we know he snatched the president of Venezuela and
14:04
S2: appointed a puppet president. Eight. Both leaders have launched poorly
14:08
S2: planned and badly executed wars of aggression that they are
14:11
S2: not winning and will not quit. Nine both concocted pretexts
14:17
S2: for those invasions. Ten are these. These are wars that
14:20
S2: are inflicting pain on their own citizens. Which I mean self-evident.
14:26
S2: 11 both men use their powers vindictively to harass their critics.
14:32
S2: There's plenty of examples there. And 12. Corruption is a core.
14:39
S2: It's a hallmark of both the Putin and Trump presidencies. Um,
14:45
S2: so if you look at all that, um, I think you,
14:48
S2: I think you can make a case that that is
14:50
S2: a powerful and intensifying convergence of politics and governance as
14:55
S2: well between these two, where the leader of the free
14:58
S2: world increasingly is modelling himself and becoming the an autocrat,
15:04
S2: a repressive autocrat at home, and a really dumb aggressor abroad,
15:11
S2: just like his role model.
15:13
S1: Wow. Peter. And so we touched a little bit on
15:17
S1: before that, more Republicans seem to sort of be standing
15:19
S1: up and being a bit alarmed. Um, if not that
15:22
S1: Trump is becoming Putin, but certainly that he's siding with
15:25
S1: him in ways that they're finding very uncomfortable. We know
15:28
S1: that some Republican politicians in a number of tight races
15:31
S1: are breaking with Trump on Russia policy ahead of the midterms,
15:34
S1: which are now about two weeks away. So what do
15:37
S1: you think, Peter? Like, could this be finally be a
15:39
S1: wake up moment that we keep waiting for? We keep asking,
15:42
S1: is this the wake up moment for Republicans? So, Peter,
15:44
S1: is this perhaps a wake up moment or, you know,
15:48
S1: perhaps he could, you know, lessen Trump's hold on power
15:51
S1: or even sort of spark maybe something of a, you know,
15:56
S1: the return of traditional Republicans and perhaps weaken the sort
15:59
S1: of Maga hold on the party, I guess.
16:01
S2: Well, the I'd make two points. The principled Republicans have
16:05
S2: already gone there. The others will be led there by
16:09
S2: the people. By the voters. Because on the expectation that
16:13
S2: the Republicans suffer quite a serious loss in this midterm,
16:18
S2: then that's the people speaking. And a lot of Republicans,
16:21
S2: I expect, will follow after they have made Trump a
16:25
S2: lame duck. It will become a lot safer. Yes. And
16:28
S2: Trump will demonstrably have lost power and prestige, and I
16:31
S2: imagine that will cost him some pull in his own party.
16:34
S2: Second point is that you might assume, from the things
16:38
S2: that Trump does, that his Maga base is in favor
16:42
S2: of him coddling, supporting, and transforming himself into Vladimir Putin.
16:46
S2: But they're not. And the polling shows that the people
16:49
S2: who voted for him in 2024 are opposed to his
16:54
S2: support for Russia by around 80% against and 20% in favor.
17:00
S2: So this is not Uh, something that his own supporters want.
17:05
S2: And this is a real test. I think the fact
17:09
S2: that even when so this policy, this impulse, this, uh,
17:15
S2: an obsession with transforming himself into Putin, it's acting against
17:21
S2: his own political interests. It's losing him support among Republicans
17:25
S2: in Congress, but also among his Maga base who think
17:28
S2: this is a wrong and repulsive thing to do. So
17:31
S2: he's acting against his own political interests here in order
17:35
S2: to help Putin. That that is beyond that is beyond
17:40
S2: an assistance or a policy. Yes. That that is a,
17:44
S2: I think, a takeover of the Trump psyche with his
17:47
S2: desperation to be just like his Russian pal Peter.
17:51
S1: Where to from here?
17:53
S2: Well, here's one option that is now open. Putin has
17:57
S2: suggested that he hold a three way summit with Trump
18:04
S2: and XI Jinping of China for the purpose of negotiating
18:09
S2: an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Now, notably,
18:14
S2: Ukraine is not invited to that summit as currently conceived. Notably,
18:19
S2: Trump has said he's open to the idea. And if
18:22
S2: those three powers I mean, remember that XI Jinping China
18:26
S2: is aligned closely with Russia, not any friend of Ukraine.
18:30
S2: So if that meeting were to take place, purporting to,
18:34
S2: you know, come to some peace deal between Russia and Ukraine,
18:37
S2: that would not be a negotiation. That would be a vivisection,
18:40
S2: a vivisection of Ukraine and a total betrayal of Ukraine,
18:46
S2: of every principle of international law and peacemaking, as well
18:52
S2: as a huge blow to all of Europe. If if
18:58
S2: that happens and if it's implemented. But of course, there's
19:01
S2: zero chance Ukraine would agree to any agreement that's carved
19:05
S2: up between those three. But you ask, what's next? That's
19:07
S2: now on the table as a potential. I think if
19:09
S2: we just think of Trump, uh, willingly, deliberately, wantonly turning
19:14
S2: himself into Vladimir Putin. Just think of it as Donald Putin.
19:20
S2: And that'll tell you what to expect and where things
19:22
S2: are going.
19:23
S1: Wow. That's really something to watch out for. Thank you
19:26
S1: so much, Peter, as always for your time.
19:28
S2: Pleasure to chat with you, Samantha.
19:41
S1: In other news, today, Australia is facing a bushfire season
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S1: 30 years. A chef who consumed alcohol while working at
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S1: after the country's fair Work umpire ruled his dismissal was harsh,
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S1: a study identifying a new subtype of depression caused by
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S1: circadian rhythm disruption. You can read more at the age.com.au
20:32
S1: or smh.com.au. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong. Our
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