To believe, or not to believe: That is the question.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview Wednesday that he would prefer that President Joe Biden win re-election in November rather than be replaced by former President Donald Trump, seemingly belying the frequent Democratic talking point that Trump is some sort of Russian tool.
The problem, of course, is how much faith to put in Putin’s statement.
The Russian strongman made the remarks during an interview with Russian “journalist” Pavel Zarubin, according to Reuters. (And if we’re going to question Putin’s trustworthiness, we need to question Zarubin’s at least as much.)
Putin had not previously commented publicly on the on the 2024 U.S. presidential contest, but apparently he, like much of the U.S. establishment media that leans about as far left as he does, has also decided that November would present U.S. voters which a choice between the 81-year-old incumbent and his 78-year-old predecessor.
Zarubin asked Putin who would be “better for us” — presumably referring to the Russian people, but perhaps referring to the country’s leadership.
“Biden,” Putin responded. “He is a more experienced, predictable person, a politician of the old school.”
According to Reuters, Putin answered “without hesitation,” indicating that either he had anticipated the question or that he had spent significant time thinking about the possibilities already.
However, he continued with what Reuters called a “slight” smile, “we will work with any U.S. president who the American people have confidence in.”
Will the US be more respected on the international stage if Trump returns to office?
That was probably not the response many Democrats would have predicted. Indeed, it appeared to have caught Reuters off guard as well.
“Based on Trump’s reluctance to criticise Putin in his first term and his more recent comments — including a weekend interview where he said he would encourage Russia to attack NATO members that failed to spend enough on their own defence — his many critics believe he would give the Kremlin leader a much easier ride,” the London-based outlet opined.
Putin also defended Biden’s ability to lead the country, which has been increasingly called into question, especially in the wake of the release of the special counsel’s report on the president’s mishandling of classified material.
“When I met with Biden in Switzerland — true, that was several years, three years ago — people were already saying he wasn’t up to it,” Putin told Zarubin. “I didn’t see anything of the kind.”
However, his comments on Trump appeared to be more descriptive and less subjective.
Trump “has been called a non-systemic politician; he has his own view on the topic of how the United States should develop relations with its allies.”
Reuters could not help themselves from noting that “[i]n 2020, a report by the U.S. Senate intelligence committee found Russia had tried to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in order to help Trump, who defeated [former first lady] Hillary Clinton.”
What the outlet failed to note is that the State Department noted in 2022 that Russia had spent a total of about $300 million over about eight years to influence elections in 25 or more countries, according to The Associated Press — in round terms, an average of $1.5 million or so per country per year.
It also failed to note that Clinton’s campaign and related outside groups spent over 500 times that much — $768,577,907, according to OpenSecrets.org — on her 2016 election effort alone, dwarfing any Russian spending to the point of rendering it irrelevant.
