Bromance? A look at Trump and Putin's friendship

Donald Trump has publicly bragged about his close friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin on more than one occasion. Fifty years ago, one could have NEVER imagined that one day, an American president and a Russian leader would be buddies. Join us as we take a look at Trump and Putin's "bromance" over the years!

On February 21, 2022, when Vladimir Putin declared two regions of Ukraine 'independent' and invaded the neighboring country to 'protect the peace,' the world was outraged. While world leaders protested this violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, Donald Trump was watching tv and said to himself: "This is genius."

That's what Trump told the Clay & Buck radio show the next day. "I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful."

The transcript of the podcast adds that he had a 'sarcastic' tone in his voice as he said it, suggesting he didn't 'really' think the invasion was 'wonderful.'

But he did think Putin's actions were "genius," adding the explanation that it was a "smart" thing for Putin to attack a country and call it a 'peace mission.' "Here’s a guy who’s very savvy," he said.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, on February 26, Trump doubled down on his controversial statements about Putin being "savvy."

Trump said: "The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he's smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb."

Trump's admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin has been obvious for years. His statements about the attack on Ukraine are in line with others from the past about his veneration for the autocrat's government style, his access to great wealth, his network of oligarchs, and his geopolitical muscle-flexing.

Trump claims to be close to Vladimir Putin. "I know him very well. Very, very well," he told Clay & Buck. Let's have a look at the most obvious signs of Trump's admiration of the Russian autocratic leader, both before and during his presidency.

During the one term that Donald Trump was U.S. president, he met Vladimir Putin face to face at least six times. They also made numerous phone calls.

While this is normal for a sitting president, the Washington Post and New York Times have noted Trump's complete disregard for diplomatic guidelines during those talks and the secrecy surrounding them. Some of the things Putin and Trump discussed are known to the public, as they should, but other talks have been kept secret to this day.

Trump would kick aides and reporters out of the room, the Washington Post recalls, and he also "took his interpreter's notes after [the first meeting in 2017] and ordered him not to disclose what he heard to anyone," says the New York Times.

"Later that night, at a dinner, Mr. Trump pulled up a seat next to... Putin to talk without any American witnesses at all," The New York Times added. On another occasion, the Financial Times got wind of a similar, unsupervised chat between Putin, Trump and their wives at the Buenos Aires opera house. According to an unnamed Russian official they talked about several topics, including Ukraine and Syria.

During public appearances, President Trump was always very friendly towards his Russian colleague. He trusted him completely when Putin said his country had nothing to do with any foreign interference in the 2016 elections. He also praised Putin regularly, for example for Russia's organization of the soccer World Cup in 2018 or his military strategies in Syria and the Middle East.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky had a different experience. Trump long denied him a meeting at the White House. He also held back military aid to Ukraine that had already been approved by Congress.

Around the time when Zelensky became president, Trump fired the American ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, making it harder for the two countries to maintain their relationship during this important transition period. All of these actions helped Putin, the Washington Post argues.

Thanks to a whistleblower inside the White House, it became known that Trump was answering Zelensky's requests for help with a suggested 'quid pro quo.' Trump and his team wanted Zelensky to dig up dirt on presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who had done business in Ukraine.

One particular phone call with Zelensky became the 'smoking gun' in this scandal which would lead to Trump's impeachment by the House. (He was acquitted by the Senate.)

Zelensky asked if Ukraine could purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles from the U.S., and Trump answered by saying: "I would like you to do us a favor though..." It was like a scene from a 'Godfather' movie, but Trump himself would later declare that it was "a perfect call."

Another eye-opener about Trump's connections with Russia and Putin was the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. The team researched for Congress whether Russian entities had meddled in the 2016 presidential elections. They concluded that, even though there were indications, they could not prove a criminal conspiracy between Trump's campaign and Russian officials.

Mueller's research followed the revelation that Trump aides, such as national security advisor Mike Flynn, had met secretly with Russian officials in the months between the 2016 elections and Trump's inauguration. Media called such alleged cooperation between Russia and Trump 'collusion.'

But why would Trump risk getting into trouble by siding with Russians during and after his presidential campaign? Why did he want to please Putin so much?

Media such as Business Insider and the Washington Post have outlined how Trump's interests as a businessman often went together with his behavior as a media personality and a statesman. "Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment," Trump said in a 2007 deposition, cited by the Washington Post. "We will be in Moscow at some point."

(Image: Donald and Ivana Trump in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1987)

From the first time he visited the country in 1987, Donald Trump and his family tried to get local support and funding for a Trump Tower in Moscow. They made several attempts over three decades to get a deal with investors and administrators.

Even as he began campaigning for the presidency in 2015, with the slogan 'Make America Great Again,' Trump was "still searching for a Russian partner" in Moscow, the Washington Post reconstructed. "He proposed a Trump Tower that would be a bold glass obelisk 100 stories high. By October [2015], he signed a nonbinding letter of intent to construct his building."

As late as the summer of 2016, when Trump was getting closer and closer to the presidency, his lawyer Michael Cohen continued to schmooze with Russian politicians. In fact, the Washington Post reports, Trump asked Cohen "to offer Putin a free penthouse, valued at $50 million, atop his planned tower."

CNN listed 80 comments Trump made about Putin from 2013 through early 2017, the time of his inauguration as president. Both as a businessman and a presidential candidate, Trump had claimed multiple times that he believed president Putin and he would "get along very well."

When Trump's beauty pageant, Miss Universe, was held in Moscow in 2013, he repeatedly said that he hoped Putin would attend the pageant. "Will he become my new best friend?" he tweeted earlier that year. In the end, the Russian president didn't come but sent him a gift and a message. Trump gushed over it, as CNN reports.

Over time, media like the Washington Post and Forbes have revealed the monetary drive for Trump's pursuit of Putin and his circle of oligarchs: he wanted his Tower in Moscow. The Washington Post suggests that Trump may still be interested in building his Russian Tower, to this day.

In and of itself, mixing personal interests with governance as a president is already concerning. But Trump's infatuation with Putin, rather than another, more democratic world leader, worries political analysts even more. Media like the New York Times have suggested that his praise for Putin in 2022 doesn't bode well for his candidacy as U.S. president in 2024 - and his policies in 2025, should he get elected.

For one, Trump's denial of the election outcome of 2020 and his party's breakdown on open elections in several American states rhymes with the autocratic government tactics of Vladimir Putin. As he told Clay & Buck in February 2022, "what went wrong [in the Ukraine crisis] was a rigged election, and what went wrong is a candidate that shouldn’t be there..."

Another point of concern is Trump's veneration of Putin's military prowess. While claiming the Russian leader was "very savvy," Trump also said that his so-called 'peace force' was "the strongest peace force." Trump's words: "That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace all right."

In fact, he said, "we could use that on our southern border," referring to Putin's invasion. He implied the U.S. may copy Putin's operation to 'defend' the southern border with Mexico or perhaps even send a 'peace force' into the neighboring country. Let's hope this was just a brain fart of Donald Trump and not a serious policy proposal.