For most of this campaign, Donald
Trump’s admiration for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and his
willingness to act as a Kremlin apologist on issues ranging from Syria to the
computer hacking of individuals and political parties have been sources of
bafflement and dismay. Mr. Trump’s alarming performance at Sunday night’s
debate deepened these concerns.
Mr. Trump again denied that the
Russians were doing anything to manipulate the presidential election despite
powerful evidence to the contrary. And he again laid bare his cockamamie and
uninformed view of the bloody civil war in Syria and his refusal to acknowledge
Russia’s role in making it worse.
Mr. Trump has no foreign policy
experience. He has, however, received two briefings from American intelligence
agencies that should have alerted him to the challenges facing the next
president but apparently have not. All of which raises unsettling questions
about whether the Republican nominee for the most powerful job in the world is
Mr. Putin’s poodle, stubbornly naïve, totally clueless or, as some have
ominously suggested, protecting undisclosed business interests in Russia.
Though allegations about Russian
interference in the election have circulated for some time, the Obama
administration on Friday formally accused Russia of stealing and disclosing
emails from the Democratic National Committee and other institutions. When
Hillary Clinton raised this, Mr. Trump came to Russia’s defense: “Maybe there
is no hacking. But they always blame Russia.
And the reason they blame Russia
because they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing
about Russia.”
“To profess not to know at this point
is willful misrepresentation,” one senior United States official told NBC News.
Presidents can choose to disregard an intelligence finding, but at this point,
why would Mr. Trump feel he has better information or analytical ability than a
“high confidence” conclusion by the country’s intelligence professionals? Why
would he not want to acknowledge a threat and address it?
It is similarly unacceptable that Mr.
Trump refuses to accept Russia’s role in backing Syria’s brutal dictator,
Bashar al-Assad, and to condemn the bombings that have killed thousands of
civilians in Aleppo and elsewhere. Instead, he ignored the civil war and
effectively praised not just Russia but also Mr. Assad and Iran for “killing
ISIS,” the Islamic State. Russia, Iran and the Assad forces are, in fact,
largely focused on destroying the Syrian rebels opposed to Mr. Assad.
Various dark theories are circulating
among experts about why Mr. Trump is so enamored of Mr. Putin, a dictator who
has crushed dissent at home and is fixated on expanding his influence abroad.
One theory, denied by Mr. Trump and impossible to confirm or rule out because
he refuses to release his taxes, is that he has business interests in Russia
that he wants to protect or develop in the future.
Mrs. Clinton has charged that Mr. Putin
is trying to throw the election to her opponent because she is too tough on the
Kremlin. Andrei Kozyrev, a former Russian foreign minister, told The Times:
“I’m sure Putin is trying — and more successfully than many think — to
manipulate both the process and one of the candidates. He realizes that Trump
will trample American democracy and damage if not destroy America as a pillar
of stability and major force able to contain him.”
In the end, it may not matter whether
Mr. Trump is being manipulated by Mr. Putin or naïvely accepting Mr. Putin’s
twisted views. What does matter is that with each new bizarre utterance he
provides further proof of his inability to evaluate credible information and,
more broadly, his lack of fitness to further his country’s best interests.
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