When Putin attributed the 2020 U.S. election outcome to mail-in voting, he reinforced one of Trump’s deepest fixations — a vivid example of how international ambitions and domestic grievances have become entangled.
In words Trump would surely appreciate, Vladimir Putin told him last Friday that he lost the 2020 U.S. presidential race — supposedly rigged by mail-in ballots.
Just three days later, the president declared that his lawyers were drafting an executive order to ban mail-in voting — a system used by nearly one-third of Americans and never credibly tied to election fraud.
Ten years ago, it would have seemed inconceivable that a U.S. president might look to a Russian autocrat for guidance on elections — a man who wins rigged landslides as his opponents are silenced or eliminated.
Yet from Trump, it was hardly unexpected. He has long blurred the line between domestic grudges and foreign policy aims, and critics argue he is uniquely susceptible to manipulation because he sees both national and global affairs through the same lens: self-interest.
Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “In Donald Trump’s world there’s no significant distinction between what he does internationally and what he is doing domestically because all centers on himself. There’s no ideological through-line or consistency.
“It’s all about what serves his own personal interests. The notion that you would roll out the red carpet for an internationally wanted war criminal 19 months after he murdered [opposition leader] Alexei Navalny would be vomit-inducing in any context. But given Trump’s long history with Vladimir Putin, I suppose it should be expected.”
Trump’s blending of domestic grievances and foreign policy has been evident in his hardline stance on immigration, with nations like El Salvador seeking favor by jailing victims of mass deportation. It also surfaced in his claims that trade tariffs would spark a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing, and in the way sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba were cast as overt appeals to exile communities from those nations living in Florida.
Trump’s first impeachment by the House stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden. Yet no foreign power has loomed larger in his political saga than Russia: in 2016, he invited Russian interference to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, and this year, he leveled baseless accusations of "treason" against Barack Obama, alleging a plot to undermine his first presidency by tying him to Russian election meddling.
Last Friday saw the much-publicized Anchorage summit between Trump and Putin. In a short press appearance, Putin assured the U.S. president that, if he had prevailed over Biden in 2020, the conflict in Ukraine would not have erupted.
Trump has deployed this argument tirelessly throughout last year’s campaign and upon his return to the White House in January. Though amplified by right-wing media, it has been carefully avoided by foreign leaders — making Putin’s echo of it a clear reward of the affirmation Trump craved.
Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “Donald Trump seems to have an inexplainable affinity for everything Vladimir Putin does and the way in which Russia’s elections are manipulated and not free and fair seems to be something Donald Trump aspires to to maintain power.
“When Donald Trump echoes the sentiments of a murderous dictator, war criminal, enemy of the United States and decides to translate that into domestic American politics, it should raise alarms to everyone as to why he would want to emulate anything Vladimir Putin suggests.”
Trump’s inward-focused preoccupations also create a delicate challenge for visiting heads of state. Over the past seven months, many have had to sit quietly as he holds court on Democrats, "fake news," and other domestic matters typically reserved for an American audience.
On Monday, with the world watching from the Oval Office, it was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s turn to sit patiently as Trump veered off into a discussion of his law-and-order crackdown in Washington, D.C., recalling a recent conversation with a friend.
“He has a son who’s a great golfer,” the 79-year-old president rambled. “He’s on tour and he came in fourth yesterday in the big tournament where Scottie Scheffler made the great shot. And he said his son is going to dinner in Washington DC tonight. I said, ‘Would you allow that to happen a year ago?’ He said, ‘No way. No way.’”
When a reporter asked Trump about his social media post regarding mail-in ballots, the president acknowledged, “Well, that’s a very off topic,” but could not resist embarking on a long and winding answer that included his vow to terminate mail-in voting and descended into a rant against Democrats: “Because with men and women’s sports, and with transgender for everybody, and open borders, and all of the horrible things, and now the new thing is, they love crime.”
Trump’s encounter with Zelenskyy notably included pointed attacks on his Democratic predecessor, reminiscent of his campaign rhetoric. "Look, this isn’t my war; this is Joe Biden’s war," he said. "Joe Biden, a corrupt politician, not a smart man — never was."
Despite having hailed Biden in 2023 for his unannounced trip to Kyiv and, the previous year, applauded the 46th president’s "strong decisions" and "bold steps" in backing the war, the Ukrainian leader stayed silent.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, listens as Trump discourses on the dining choices of a friend’s son. Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/UPI/Shutterstock
Trump’s penchant for publicly disparaging his predecessors represents yet another sharp break with tradition. Whatever private opinions they may have held, Ronald Reagan never criticized Jimmy Carter’s handling of the Iran hostage crisis in front of foreign dignitaries, nor did Barack Obama publicly attack George W. Bush over the Iraq invasion.
Joel Rubin, a former assistant deputy secretary of state, remarked, “I find it shocking because American presidents historically leave other American presidents alone. They’ll criticise policies but they don’t go for personal taunts.
“America’s strength as a country when it comes to foreign policy is our consistency and bipartisan mindset and national patriotism. The denigrating of previous American presidents in front of international audiences is very stark and very different. Trump is doing something that nobody else has done before.”
Trump’s default, Rubin added, was to say that Biden was the worst at everything. “It wasn’t like they asked him about Biden. He chose to bring it up. It conveys a deep insecurity about his sense of place and what he’s doing. He’s attempting to demonstrate greatness by continually denigrating others.
“If the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, was interviewed and constantly trashing Sunak or Cameron or whatever – ‘Oh, those people they did Brexit’ – it gives off an image as if the country is coming unglued.”
