Russian State TV Pundit Says ‘Putin Understands Trump All Too Well’ and ‘Can Manipulate Him’
A political pundit on Russian state television said Vladimir Putin “can manipulate” President Donald Trump.
Whatever the veracity of the claim, the fact that it was made on Russia’s state-controlled airwaves at all is notable amid Trump’s ongoing attempt to broker an agreement to end the war in Ukraine.
On Sunday, The Financial Times reported that Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky got into a “shouting match” during a phone call as Trump berated his besieged counterpart.
“The meeting between the US and Ukrainian presidents descended many times into a ‘shouting match,’ with Trump ‘cursing all the time,’ people familiar with the matter said,” the report stated.
On Monday’s OutFront on CNN, Erin Burnett pointed to the report and added that Russian state media is depicting Trump as manipulable.
“Putin’s puppet – that is how Russian state media is portraying Trump tonight after the president did a complete 180 when it comes to the war in Ukraine,” she said. “This time, after that, two-and-a-half-hour phone call with Putin requested, Trump is now, once again, after that call coming to Putin’s defense, telling Zelensky in a meeting that reportedly turned into a shouting match that Putin would destroy his country if he didn’t agree to ending the war on Putin’s terms.”
Burnett then aired a clip from Russian television flagged by Julia Davis, who runs Russian Media Monitor. In the snippet, a Russian pundit had this to say about the relationship between Trump and Putin:
Putin understands Trump all too well. Trump doesn’t understand Putin. Putin can manipulate him very well and lead Trump by his nose.
Trump has long expressed a degree of admiration for Putin, as well as other autocrats such as Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un. During his first term in 2018, Trump infamously sided with Putin and against the U.S. intelligence community regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Watch above via CNN.
