Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the death of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Monday by making the tragic event about himself. “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.”
Missing from Trump’s obscene comparison of his legal troubles to Russia’s brutal repression of Navalny — who died last week at the age of 47 in an Arctic penal colony — was any mention of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his culpability in Navalny’s treatment. Trump’s omission of Putin’s role warrants criticism. But his statement has at least one top Democrat reaching for conspiratorial explanations.
Trump is openly sympathetic to people he sees as kindred autocratic spirits.
Former House speaker and Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California reacted to Trump’s statement by implying Putin was covertly pulling the strings. “You wonder what does Putin have on Donald Trump that he always has to be beholden to him,” she mused in an interview with MSNBC. In response to a follow-up question about what that might be, Pelosi said she wasn’t sure but speculated, “either something financial he has on him, or something on the come, something that he expects to get.”
Pelosi’s conjecture is reminiscent of the conspiracy theory that many Democrats and liberal commentators and activists have floated for years: that Putin holds some kind of “kompromat” on Trump which renders him subservient to Russian interests. But why succumb to evidence-free, and at times outlandish, speculation about secret sources of leverage over Trump when a simpler explanation lies before us? Trump is soft on Putin because he admires him on an ideological level.
If the fundamental explanation for Trump’s softness on Putin were some kind of compromising leverage Putin had on Trump, then Trump’s behavior toward Putin should look anomalous. That is, Trump’s seeming warmth toward Putin and his insensitive remarks about the Kremlin's brutal repression of dissent should be utterly unique among world leaders. In reality, it’s part of a clear trend. Trump, in defiance of previously held bipartisan norms, has for years expressed open admiration for many strongmen. He has either refrained from standard criticism or made strikingly positive comments about authoritarian leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, former Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and Polish President Andrzej Duda. These comments have often involved praising leaders for their authoritarian style of governance.
It’s not surprising that a man who attempted a soft coup against his own government, who reportedly wanted to shoot protesters, and who is advocating for a police state in his second term considers autocratic leaders his models. Trump is openly sympathetic to people he sees as kindred autocratic spirits.
Trump’s affection for Putin would also be more suspicious if he stood alone on the right in his rhetoric. Instead, for years many right-wing nationalists have delighted in talking about Russia as a north star for the U.S. due to its extreme nativism, social traditionalism and autocratic political system. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently traveled to Russia to heap praise on the country as superior to the U.S. and conduct a fawning interview of Putin. Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, have defended Russia’s aggressive behavior against Ukraine, in part by describing opposition to Russia as a symptom of liberal extremism. At white nationalist rallies, participants chant fervently in support of Putin. (Alongside Russia, Trump and right-wing activists across the West have fallen in love with the conservatism in Central European countries such as Hungary.)
Advocates for the notion that Putin has something on Trump ought to have been humbled by the results of extensive investigations into Trump’s connections to Russia during his presidency. Undoubtedly, Trump and his associates had inappropriate connections with Russia which displayed an outrageous disregard for national security and the democratic process. But many of the most eye-catching claims circulating at the time about Moscow allegedly having compromising material with which to manipulate Trump — as detailed in the thoroughly debunked Steele dossier — were never corroborated by evidence. “The ‘Trump as Manchurian candidate’ theories, the frenzied hunt to unearth any suspicious-sounding ‘contacts with any Russians, and anything based on the Steele dossier — the explosive document that purported to have the goods on Trump but very much didn’t — have not aged well,” wrote Vox’s Andrew Prokop in his reflections on the investigations last year, after having rigorously covered the issue in real time.
We cannot rule out that Putin has covertly influenced or will influence Trump, using incentives such as promises of certain kinds of investments in Trump’s business holdings. Trump’s presidency was marked by a flagrant violation of the Emoluments Clause, and it is not hard to see him being swayed by the prospect of accumulating additional wealth, particularly as the extraordinary fees from his civil trials accumulate. But arguing that a shadowy puppeteer or patron is secretly calling the shots cannot stand at the top of the list of explanations for Trump’s behavior. Occam’s razor dictates that the simplest explanation for something is the best explanation. In this case, that explanation is that Trump is nice to Putin because he admires him.
