Press
After his own re-election, Vladimir Putin is eyeing another term in office for Donald Trump. Because even US intelligence officers see common goals between the two.
Moscow/Washington – After the re-election farce of Vladimir Putin as Russia President, US intelligence officers and Democrats from the US are concerned about the 2024 US elections and the possible election of former President Donald Trump to the White House. Putin recently said on Russian TV that he would like Joe Biden to have another term in office in the USA because Biden is more experienced and “predictable”. Nevertheless, observers assume that Putin and Trump could benefit from each other in office – and that the USA could emerge from this development as a big loser.
The Guardian describes the relationship between Trump and Putin as a “bromance”, the portmanteau of “bro” for brother, and “romance” for romance, which is intended to describe an intense male friendship. Douglas London, retired senior CIA operations officer and author, goes even further as he envisions another, parallel term in office Putin and Trump warns: “I think Trump and Putin are natural bedfellows. They complement each other well. They have common goals.”
Russia and Putin benefit: Trump's re-election would ensure a weak USA and NATO
“Trump sees Putin as a strongman,” Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a national security official in the first two years of the Trump administration, said Guardian. “In a way, they work in parallel because they are both trying to weaken the USA, but for very different reasons.” So Putin does not prefer Joe Biden, but the “agent of chaos Trump,” says Hill, “because he undermines the USA.” Putin would in turn benefit from a weak USA. Not only that Trump, for his part, is already openly talking about a weakening of NATO – When asked about a possible expansion of the war in Ukraine, Putin also left no doubt after his re-election that that he would not shy away from a confrontation with NATO.
Hill clearly fears that Trump would initiate developments in the USA that would play into Putin's hands. “Trump is not worried about national security, but is focused on himself. By shrinking the US government and appointing loyalists, Trump will get rid of important security expertise.” Trump is “shockingly ignorant” when it comes to foreign policy. “Trump rarely read materials given to him before meetings. Given his approach to governing, Trump poses less of a threat to Russia than to the United States.”
US secret service worried about weakening – Donald Trump's admiration for Vladimir Putin
“There is literally nothing about Trump that suggests he would put the interests of our country above his own interests under almost any circumstance,” said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. “So if he has a close and long-standing, almost submissive relationship with a foreign enemy who is also a billionaire oligarch, the recipe for disaster is obvious.” One of the means by which Trump could transform the USA is therefore this US Secret Service.
“Trump will almost certainly politicize the intelligence community by making good on his public promise to appoint people on the far fringes of right-wing politics like Michael Flynn and Kash Patel,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior intelligence official. The aforementioned Trump confidant Patel had recently launched aggressive rhetoric – based on the popular conspiracy theory of a stolen election in 2020: “We're going to go out and find the conspirators, not just in the government, but also in the media Joe Biden helped to rig elections.”
Polymeroupoulos assumes that US relations with allies would suffer with new personnel in the intelligence services. Allies such as the British and French would gradually stop sharing intelligence with the US in order to protect their sources.
Will Putin help Trump win the 2024 US elections?
According to a report by the US broadcaster NBC News Russia has already begun to influence the 2024 US elections. Not a new phenomenon: like that Mirror reported, there is evidence that Russia worked to undermine the US electoral system and sow doubt about the integrity of Democratic candidates in the 2016 and 2020 US elections. According to NBC, Russia currently has many social media profiles on guard that will soon become even more actively involved in the election campaign.
One thrust is to further inflate the conflict between the US government and Texas Governor Greg Abott over security on the Mexican border – and thus pretend that USA would be on the verge of civil war. Given all this, Putin's statement that he would prefer Biden seems like a diversionary tactic. (cat)
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