Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

wounded veteran, beat him with a belt. Putin’s way up, his dream, was to volunteer for the K.G.B. Donald Trump encountered few rats on his lawn in Jamaica Estates. Soft, surly, and NEWS DESK academically uninterested, Donald was disruptive in class— TRUMP AND PUTIN: A LOVE so much so that his father, a real- STORY estate tycoon of the outer boroughs, shipped him off to The attraction is mutual, but history shows who’s really using whom. military school when he was thirteen. He did not set out to By David Remnick, AUGUST 3, 2016 serve his country; he set out to multiply his father’s fortune. “When I look at myself in the A mural in Vilnius, Lithuania. Trump sees strength and cynicism in Putin. Putin sees in first grade and I look at myself Trump a grand opportunity. now, I’m basically the same,” “ ladimir Vladimirovich Trump has said. The Putin and Donald J. Trump temperament is not that ” areV locked in a humid political different. embrace, which seems, at first glance, unlikely. Putin grew up in Decades later, Trump has praised postwar Leningrad. In the dismal Putin as a forceful leader, a “ ” courtyard of his building on better leader than Barack Baskov Lane, a hangout for local Obama; Putin hardly conceals thugs and drunks, he and his his hope that Trump will win childhood friends pursued their election to the White House. favorite pastime: chasing rats What would be more with sticks. His father, a advantageous for Putin than to http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 1 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 2 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

see the United States elect an political enemies in stages of incompetent leader who just so sexual and/or narcotic happens to be content to leave indulgence, and have distributed the Russian regime to its own the grainy images online. Last devices, particularly in Europe? April, state TV broadcast a Even as non-Democrats have black-and-white film of Mikhail variously described their own Kasyanov, Putin’s former Prime “ ” “ ” nominee as a concon, a bully, Minister but now a potential “ ” and a borderline 9/11 opposition leader, exchanging conspiracy theorist, Putin has carnal favors and playing “Name acted as a surrogate from afar, That Tune” with his political dropping clear hints at his assistant, Natalya. preference, slyly declaring Trump “ ” “ bright and talented without Even if the Russian government ” doubt. is not responsible for the hack on the D.N.C., Putin’s affinity for The Times has reported that Trump is clear. Some part of it hackers who broke into the may be a matter of kindred Democratic National temperament. Just as Trump talks Committee’s e-mail trove—a ominously about Mexican cyber version of the Watergate “rapists” and tens of thousands of — “ … burglary were likely agents of illegal immigrants roamingroaming ” the Russian Federation. We shall freefree in the land, Putin won early see if that suspicion holds up. But popularity by vowing to dispense what’s undisputedcon is thatbully the with terrorists from the gatheringborderline of kompromat— Caucasus: “We will ice them in compromising material—is a their shithouses.” Trump is, after familiar tactic in Putin’s arsenal. all, a kind of parody of Putin: the For years, the Russian bluster, the palaces. As the intelligence services have filmed historian Timothy Snyder puts it,

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roaming free Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

“Putin is the real-world version the brink of nonexistence. On the of the person Trump pretends to morning of July 23, 1991, twotwo ” be on television. newspaper articles appeared that, each in its own way, signalled the The fellow-feeling between the end. two is complex, but it is not hard to see who gets the better of A liberal paper called whom. Trump sees strength and Nezavisimaya Gazeta (The cynicism in Putin and hopes to Independent Newspaper) emulate him. Putin sees in published a leak of a new draft Trump a grand opportunity. He platform for the Communist sees in Trump weakness and Party. The draft rejected ignorance, a confused mind. He Marxist-Leninist ideology in has every hope of exploiting him. favor of European-style social democracy, and it MOST POPULAR “ ” utin’s view of the world—​​ of unconditionally condemned “ ” 1. Trump Threatens to Skip the future of Russia and its the crimes of the Stalin regime, “ Remaining Debates If Hillary Is increasinglyP dangerous which broke and maimed the — two There confrontation with the West is lives of millions of people, twowhole BY ANDY BOROWITZ ” rooted in the fall of the Soviet nations.newspaper The articles draft had the 2. Union. His behavior and his endorsement of Mikhail CNN Launches Manhunt After resentments, to say nothing of his Gorbachev, who was still the Lester Holt Vanishes from ’ shrewd foray into our current Party s General Secretary, but of Debate BY ANDY BOROWITZ electoral follies, are based entirely no more than a third of the on that event. Central Committee. 3. Donald Trump, a Failed Bully in His Debate with Clinton BY AMY DAVIDSON Twenty-five summers ago, That same morning, Sovyetskaya Communist ideology and the Rossiya (Soviet Russia), the most 4. Hillary Clinton Brings Out the prominent daily outlet for Soviet Union itself teetered on Real Donald Trump orthodox Communists and BY JOHN CASSIDY http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 5 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 6 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

hardcore Russian nationalists, 5. Hillary Turns Trump Into Mitt and blood.” published a front-page call to Romney “ ” BY BENJAMIN WALLACE-WELLS arms called Slovo k Narodu The florid apocalyptic language “ ” ( A Word to the People ). The was distinctly that of one of the OUR THIRTY MOST POPULAR » appeal, signed by leading figures signatories, Aleksander in the military, the security Prokhanov, the editor of a apparatus, and the right-wing reactionary newspaper called intelligentsia, accused Gorbachev Dyen’ (The Day). Prokhanov, a and more radical reformers of third-rate novelist, was closely leading the Soviet Union to ruin. connected with the Army and “ ” Only if the healthy forces of the intelligence services. He was state power united and acted widely known around Moscow as “ ” swiftly could humiliation and “the Nightingale of the General “ ” fratricidal war be averted. Staff.” For many months, Prokhanov’s paper had given vent “An enormous, unforeseen to the anger of important figures calamity has taken place,” it read. in the Soviet hierarchy. At a “The Motherland, our country, a certain point, these men no great power, given to us by longer cared that they were nature, with its glorious speaking in defiance of ancestors, is perishing, breaking Gorbachev. They saw a world apart, falling into darkness. And coming to an end, and with it this collapse is taking place with their positions, their privileges. In our silent acquiescence and order to preserve at least the tolerance. Brothers, we are late in rudiments of the old order, they waking to this, late in observing were prepared to defy Gorbachev the misery when our home is and anyone else they judged to be already aflame in every corner. betraying them. InIn oneone interviewinterview, We must extinguish this blaze published in 1991, Oleg not with water but with our tears Baklanov, Gorbachev’s assistant

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In one interview Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

in charge of the military- December, 1990, Shevardnadze industrial complex, told resigned his post, declaring Prokhanov, “The bones of the publicly, “A dictatorship is defense industry are breaking.” coming.” The Soviet Union was weak, and losing its capacities as a And in June, 1991, just weeks superpower. Prokhanov replied before the publication of “A that perhaps, in order to avoid Word to the People,” Gavriil “ the collapse of Soviet power, one Popov, a liberal and the mayor of should spit upon the legal Moscow, went to Spaso House, technicalities and impose a the residence of American ” dictatorship. Ambassador Jack Matlock, and told him that a coup was being These hints that the conservative planned. Matlock sent an forces in the Soviet leadership emergency “flash cable” to Baker, were emboldened and planning who, in turn, told Bush; the some sort of putsch against Americans also informed both Gorbachev did not come as a Gorbachev and the Russian shock to the first Bush President, Boris Yeltsin. Administration. As early as July, Gorbachev, who had grown 1989, Eduard Shevardnadze, accustomed to a more or less Gorbachev’s Foreign Minister, permanent state of crisis and had told Secretary of State James embattlement, somehow did not Baker, “In time there could be take the warning seriously. This danger of civil war and was a mistake. dictatorship.” The C.I.A. did not think a putsch was necessarily On August 18, 1991, while imminent, but with every month vacationing at his seaside villa in — there were broad indications Ukraine, Gorbachev received then more booming ones. In unexpected visitors from the http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 9 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 10 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

leadership in Moscow. They afar. When the Berlin Wall was informed him that he was being crumbling, in 1989, he was a “temporarily” stripped of his mid-level intelligence officer in authority, until “everything Dresden, and as protesters returned to normal.” Gorbachev’s arrived at the gates of his offices communications were cut off, and he helped shovel countless secret he and his family were put under documents into a roaring furnace. virtual house arrest. “The work we did was no longer necessary,” he told an interviewer, “ The next morning, state years later. What was the point television broadcast a loop of of writing, recruiting, and Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Swan procuring information? Nobody Lake.” Tanks rolled into the at Moscow Center was reading ” center of the capital. The people our reports. Fearing that the of the Soviet Union were building would be overrun, informed that Gorbachev had Lieutenant Colonel Putin called “stepped down” and yielded Moscow for orders. But, he said, “ ” power to the ominously named Moscow was silent. State Committee for the State of “ “ Emergency because of problems I had the feeling then that the related to his health.” Everyone country was no more, that it had understood the meaning: the disappeared,” Putin recalled. “It coup had begun. had become clear that the Soviet Union was sick. It was a deadly,

The beginning of the coup, Moscow, August incurable disease called paralysis 19, 1991. —a paralysis of power.”

utin, for his part, By August, 1991, Putin was back P experienced the events of in Leningrad, working for the Soviet decline and fall from Anatoly Sobchak, the city’s http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 11 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 12 of 31

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liberal mayor, as a K.G.B.- Putin reacted to the coup with affiliated aide. The coup lasted ambivalence. Having sided with only three days. The plotters Sobchak through the ordeal, failed to follow the standard helping to insure his security, he putsch handbook. A coup, Lenin was at a loss when the drama instructed, must “first seize the ended. Where would he go? The telegraph,” the means of August events, he said, “tore my communication. They didn’t. life apart. . . . There were no There were renegade reports all prospects, and in general it was over the media, rallying the clear what would happen with resistance. The coup’s leaders the intelligence service.” Putin were comically disorganized, claims that he resigned from the often drunk, and, above all, intelligence services after the unwilling to shed the blood coup, though he is fond of saying, necessary to overcome popular with evident conviction, “There resistance. Just as Gorbachev is no such thing as a former refused to open fire in the K.G.B. man.” capitals of Eastern and Central “ Europe to retain the near By Christmas, 1991, the Soviet ” Empire, the coup plotters lacked Union itself was a memory. the cruelty of their Stalin-era Gorbachev, who struggled to heroes. They could not bear to form even a loosely confederated unleash the tanks on their union out of the fifteen Soviet countrymen or even arrest republics, blamed Yeltsin and the Yeltsin, who bravely rallied the leaders of Kazakhstan, Ukraine, forces of opposition. and Belarus for plotting illegally to dissolve the bloc. But the truth Demonstrators defy the curfew in Moscow in was that, by that time, the union the days after the coup, in August, 1991. itself was a mass of internal uprisings for independence—first

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in the smallest republics, the mode. “Opposing Forces,” a Baltic states, and then in the book-length dialogue between Slavic heart of the union, two dissidents—one Polish, Ukraine and Russia. Adam Michnik; the other Russian, Alexei Navalny—is a Putin was less ambivalent about good supplement to the best of ’ the collapse of the Soviet Union. the recent surveys: Ben Judah s “ ” In 2005, he called it “the greatest Fragile Empire, Peter Baker ’ “ geopolitical catastrophe of the and Susan Glasser s Kremlin ” ’ past century.” Although it was Rising, and Arkady Ostrovsky s “ ” Yeltsin who brought Putin to The Invention of Russia. Moscow, Putin has expressed barely concealed contempt for But the nonfiction volume that the nineteen-nineties, the Yeltsin has done the most to deepen the era, as a period of unrelieved emotional understanding of chaos, theft, and humiliation. Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of ’ There are many worthwhile late is Svetlana Alexievich s oral “ books on the post-Soviet period history Secondhand Time: The ” and Putin’s ascent. David Last of the Soviets. Alexievich Hoffman meticulously describes is sixty-eight and lives in Minsk, the rise of the new rich in the the capital of Belarus. She won nineties in “The Oligarchs,” and the Nobel Prize in Literature last Steven Lee Myers’s “The New year. She is hardly pro-Putin. Tsar” is the most solid book we Like many in the urban have on Putin. Mikhail Zygar’s intelligentsia, she supported the “All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside anti-Kremlin street the Court of Vladimir Putin” is demonstrations that took place an entertaining look at Kremlin between 2011 and 2013. She politics in the “Game Change” views Putin as a dangerous http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 15 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 16 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

autocrat who chokes dissent. “I by refusing to take moral or have no love for the Russia of political direction from the West. ” Beria, Stalin, and Putin, sheshe hashas He has taken to lecturing the saidsaid. West for its sins and hypocrisies —in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Libya, — “ But Alexievich is interesting less and elsewhere its moral ” for her analysis of Putin’s bankruptcy, its godlessness. political stratagems than for her Bravado became his way of profound presentation of Russian appealing to his own people. His voices:​​ the psychological military actions in Crimea and disorientation after decades of Syria are meant not only to Soviet rule and Communist display a geopolitical toughness ideology; the widespread outrage but also to rouse a Russian toward the business élite who people who were humbled and grabbed up state enterprises at insulted by the weakness that cut-rate prices; the sense of loss followed the Gorbachev and and humiliation after realizing Yeltsin eras. Many Russians are, that a once great power was now despite the censorship of diseased and fallen. televised news, quite well she has informed, and they know that Putinsaid ’s hold over public opinion Putin is hardly their Lincoln. unquestionably depends on his And yet he speaks to the ruthless stifling of dissent and grievances and indignities of the media. But he also appeals to many millions of Russians; he something that is harder to speaks to the restoration of quantify, something deep in the Russian self-respect. This appeal ’ psychology of a people just is hard, given Putin s brutality twenty-five years distant from and his cynical disdain for the fall of the Soviet imperium. individual rights and democratic Putin gains tremendous plaudits aspirations, to understand from a http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 17 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 18 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

distance. People in the West, essentials. He has admitted that ’ Alexievich toldtold thethe Times he doesn t read much. It shows. “ recentlyrecently, do not understand that On Sunday, in an interview with there is a collective Putin, George Stephanopoulos, Trump consisting of some millions of said that in his Administration people who do not want to be Putin would never send forces humiliated by the West. There is into Ukraine. When a little piece of Putin in Stephanopoulos reminded everyone.” Trump that “they’re already there,” the candidate forged t is safe to say that, on a ahead like a school kid strictly intellectual level, bullshitting his way through an DonaldI Trump understands little oral exam that he had not of this. In recent weeks, he has bothered to prepare for. made it plain that he is ignorant of the basics of contemporary “O.K., well, he’s there in a certain Russian and geostrategic reality. way,” Trump said. “But I’m not He has declared NATO “obsolete” there. You have Obama there. and has suggestedtold the that Times he might And, frankly, that whole part of dorecently away with Article 5, which the world is a mess under promises that an attack on one Obama, with all the strength that member state is an attack on all. you’re talking about and all of the He makes the threat not because power of NATO and all of this.” he is interested in reassessing anything as complex as global- When, on “Morning Joe,” he security strategy but, rather, described Putin as “a leader, because not every member state unlike what we have in this is forking over its dues. country,” Joe Scarborough pushed back, saying that Putin Trump is muddled in the “kills journalists that don’t agree http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 19 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 20 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

with him.” This seemed not to make up a pretty faze Trump. “Well, I think our disproportionate cross-section of country does plenty of killing a lot of our assets,” he said, in a also, Joe,” he replied. “You know, speech in 2008 to a real-estate there’s a lot of stuff going on in conference, according to the the world right now, Joe. A lot of Washington Post. “We see a lot of killing going on and a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” stupidity.” The public would have a more detailed sense of this if Trump Some analysts have said that were ever to release his tax Trump’s affection for Putin is returns. based mainly on his own, and his circle’s, economic interests. Paul One of the countless lies that Manafort, his campaign manager, Trump has told over the years is profited immensely as an adviser that he is personally acquainted to Viktor Yanukovich, the pro- with Putin. In 2013, while he was Russian (and now deposed) promoting the Miss Universe leader of Ukraine. (Manafort has contest in Moscow, he told also worked as a lobbyist for MSNBC that he had a other dictators, including “relationship” with Putin. In Mobutu Sese Seko, of Zaire, and 2014, at a National Press Club Ferdinand Marcos, of the lunch in Washington, Trump Philippines.) Carter Page, one of remarked that he had spoken Trump’s foreign-policy advisers, “indirectly and directly” with has longstanding ties to Putin, “who could not have been Gazprom, a pillar of Russia’s nicer.” In fact, as Trump has now energy industry. Donald Trump, had to admit, the two never met. Jr., has made it plain that the family has pursued opportunities No matter. Trump is just pleased “ in Russia for decades. Russians that Putin has returned his http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 21 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 22 of 31 personally acquainted

he told MSNBC Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

compliments. “It is always a great Republican nominee. Trump, honor,” he has said, “to be so Dugin writes, is “crude America nicely complimented by a man so without the gloss of the globalist highly respected within his own élite. He is sometimes disgusting country and beyond.” and violent, but he is what he is. He is true America. . . . Vote for In Moscow, officials around Trump and see what will ” Putin have echoed the idea that happen. Trump’s election would be welcome and would bring about utin may get high marks for better, less stressful, relations with leadership from Trump, but the United States. Alexei heP knows that his own country is Pushkov, the chairman of the in a state of crisis: low global international-affairs committee energy prices, Western sanctions, in the State Duma, has said that, an economy that seems incapable because Trump has stated that of healthy growth. And, in his the people of Crimea prefer to view, what is bad for the United live under Russian rule, then States is good for Russia. “Trump has shown himself to be ” far more democratic than Putin’s first years in office were Hillary Clinton or Barack relatively charmed. Even as he Obama. Alexander Dugin is a denounced the colossal property nationalist intellectual whose grab of the nineties, Russia pronouncements often represent began, in the early aughts, to see the darker id of the Russian the benefits of those changes. policy élite. Recently, he wrote of The G.D.P. climbed steadily. As “ his disdain for Obama ( the energy prices soared, so, too, did ” black Muslim Democrat ) and the over-all economy, and not “ ” Clinton ( quite annoying ) and only for the super-wealthy. Even his amused admiration for the as Putin enriched his circle of http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 23 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 24 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

intelligence officers and friends resentful attitude toward the from St. Petersburg, creating a West. He felt that the hand he kleptocracy widely known as had extended to Washington had Kremlin, Inc., he was also able to been rejected, disdained. He erase budget deficits, build a reminded the public that the surplus, pay salaries and pensions Clinton Administration had for working people, and help taken advantage of Yeltsin, engender a new urban middle bombing Kosovo and Belgrade. class. He was furious that the coalition attack on Libya did not merely Putin was not nearly as anti- stop a potential slaughter in Western then as he is now. He Benghazi but ended up toppling notably called George W. Bush Muammar Qaddafi and creating quickly to offer support after even more disorder in the region. 9/11, and even talked about He admonished the West for “ ” future Russian membership in treating Russia as a vassal NATO. “Russia is part of the rather than as a powerful global ” European culture, he saidsaid in actor. 2000. “And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Putin had come to believe that Europe and what we often call the West was behaving heedlessly the civilized world. So it is hard abroad; it was also fomenting for me to visualize NATO as an internal dissent. And this is enemy.” Putin’s singular anxiety. He fears a chaotic uprising, an Arab After NATO absorbed seven new Spring or an Orange Revolution countries in the region, in 2004, on Red Square, outside the and after witnessing the Kremlin walls. In 2011, he rebellions in his midst, from Kiev accused Hillary Clinton of giving “ ” to Tbilisi, Putin adopted a more the signal that started a wave of http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 25 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 26 of 31

said Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

anti-Kremlin demonstrations in When Putin looks at the downtown Moscow. He resented Presidential race in the United the presence in Moscow of the States, he sees Hillary Clinton, American Ambassador, Michael who is hardly likely to dissolve McFaul, whom the Kremlin had American commitments to NATO. suspected of trying to push a pro- Then he sees Donald Trump, democracy agenda in Russia who refuses to accept that Putin since his days as a grad student. kills opponents (“I haven’t seen that”) and who called the ’ In 2012, Putin returned to the Russian leader s diatribe against Presidency determined never American exceptionalism in the “ again to trust the West or the Times, three years ago, a ” urban middle classes that had masterpiece. protested against him. He used “ ’’ ” means as aggressive as In Putin’’’ss PuppetPuppet, in Slate, cyberattacks (in the Baltic states) Franklin Foer suggests, with the and old-fashioned invasion (in benefit of original reporting, that Ukraine) to subdue independent one reason for Trump’s attitude nations that he considered within has to do with his business his sphere of influence. Putin has ambitions. Perhaps. He is also also aligned himself withMichael right when he dismisses the reactionaryMcFaul forces across Europe. cartoonish notion that, somehow, His government has loaned Trump is a “Manchurian ’’ ” money to Marine Le Pen’’’ss candidate. But it is also quite nativist party, in France, and has clear that Putin has an interest in lent support to similarly right- Trump’s success. wing forces elsewhere in Europe, like Golden Dawn, in Greece, “Putin wants the United States and Jobbik, in Hungary. to be taken up with its own problems, and forget about http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 27 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story’ Page 28 of 31 Putin’s Puppet

’ Marine Le Pen’s Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

things like Ukraine and Crimea,” Quds Force and the Kurds, or Sergei Parkhomenko, an activist what the “nuclear triad” is; that and broadcaster for Echo of his analysis of Brexit was based Moscow, told me. “It seems to in part on what might be good him that, if the United States for his golf courses in Britain; elects Trump, all of America will that his knowledge of world be taken up for at least a year affairs is roughly that of someone trying to ‘digest’ him. who subscribes to a daily newspaper but doesn’t always “But there is a second reason,” have time to get to it. Parkhomenko continued. “Putin Overwhelmed with his own is convinced that absolutely problems at home, Putin sees the everything in this world is done ready benefit in having the for money. He is a religious United States led by an fanatic, and money is his god. unlettered narcissist who believes With money, it is possible to that geostrategic questions are as solve any problem, buy any easy to resolve as a real-estate interlocutor. He bought the closing. Putin knows a chump Olympic Games, he bought the when he sees one. World Cup. It will be easy to deal David Remnick has with Trump. He won’t need to been editor of The use words in negotiations, only ’ New Yorker since figures. When they don t agree, it 1998 and a staff will only be necessary to find the writer since 1992. right price.” MORE: RUSSIA DONALD TRUMP 2016 ELECTION HILLARY CLINTON Vladimir Putin is a cunning and VLADIMIR PUTIN

cynical reader of his adversaries. WATCH: David Remnick, Amy He notices that Trump does not Davidson, Kelefa Sanneh, and Nate know the difference between the Silver discuss the problem of http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 29 of 31 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trump-and-putin-a-love-story Page 30 of 31 Trump and Putin: A Love Story - The New Yorker 9/27/16, 1:14 PM

Trumpism.

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