In hot water

Trump in hot water over Putin embrace

The nominee's overtures to the Russian leader are alarming his fellow Republicans. 

By Kristen East

Donald Trump’s extraordinary embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his campaign on the defensive for a second straight day, coming after the Republican nominee praised the Kremlin strongman and appeared in an interview on a TV network backed by Moscow.

Trump's warm words for Putin have raised the hackles of fellow Republicans and put his allies in the awkward position of claiming their party's standard-bearer is not really praising the Russian leader. It has particularly alarmed the GOP's hawkish national security wing, which hews almost universally to its longstanding view of Russia as an implacable foe of the United States.

Trump inflamed the situation Thursday evening by criticizing U.S. foreign policy during an interview broadcast on RT America, a television network owned by the Russian government that often toes the Kremlin's line. He even dismissed U.S. officials' concern that Russia may be seeking to disrupt the Nov. 8 election as "pretty unlikely," though he went on to say that any such interference would be "inappropriate." (Trump's campaign manager said the interview was meant as a "favor" to host Larry King, whose show is syndicated and broadcast on RT.)

That followed a series of overtures from Trump this week, including during NBC’s Commander-In-Chief Forum on Wednesday night in which he said of Putin, “If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him” and lauded the Russian president's 82 percent approval ratings.

Trump also declared that Putin had been a better leader than President Barack Obama — “Certainly in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been” — an assertion that his running mate Mike Pence on Thursday called “inarguable.”

But that doesn’t mean that Trump likes Putin all that much, his campaign says.

“They are not praising him,” Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told “CBS This Morning” on Friday. “He is not praising him so much as saying that we will work with people, anybody who wants to help, help stop the advance of ISIS — [such people] will be welcome in a Trump-Pence administration to do so.”

She also dismissed Republican lawmakers’ criticism of Trump’s compliments of Putin as overblown, stating, “They’re misreading the quote then.”

Not all of Trump’s allies were so quick to try to create distance between Trump and Putin, though.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager who still talks regularly to the nominee, pushed forward the idea that Putin is a stronger leader than Obama.

“Vladimir Putin has had a stronger influence on his country than Barack Obama has had here. He’s been a stronger leader,” Lewandowski, now a CNN contributor, said on the network’s “New Day” program on Friday.

Also calling Putin “a fighter” for his people, Lewandowski said Trump’s willingness to work with Putin presents an opportunity “to work with what would normally be an adversary.”

Trump’s latest warm words for Putin have further aggravated the fissures in the Republican Party.

After presenting meek optimism upon their return from the summer recess, GOP lawmakers this week are again voicing their frustration with their nominee, especially because Russian hacks of U.S. databases have alarmed politicians.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) was visibly exasperated on Thursday after being asked to answer for Trump’s declaration that Putin was a stronger leader than Obama.

"Vladimir Putin is an aggressor that does not share our interests," Ryan said during his weekly press conference, adding that it "certainly appears that he is conducting ... state-sponsored cyberattacks on what appears to be our political system."

He also said he doesn’t have to explain away all of Trump’s comments.

"I'm not going to sit up here and do the tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night or the night before in Hillary versus Donald. That is not my job," Ryan said. "I'm not going to be the election-year pundit."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was more direct in his assessment.

“Other than destroying every instrument of democracy in his own country, having opposition people killed, dismembering neighbors through military force and being the benefactor of the butcher of Damascus, he’s a good guy,” Graham said of Putin on Thursday.

“This calculation by Trump unnerves me to my core,” added Graham, who has been one of Trump’s most vocal critics in the Senate.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has had an uneven track record of backing Trump, told the Guardian that he would give the Manhattan billionaire the benefit of the doubt.

“My sense is those views will probably change once he understands better who Vladimir Putin truly is – that’s my hope,” Rubio said.

But he also railed against Putin for his tight control on the media and the military and for the fact that his political opponents are often either jailed or disappear.

“I don’t think what Vladimir Putin exhibits is leadership. I think what he exhibits is thuggery … and we should be clear-eyed about that,” he said.

Trump’s overtures toward Russia caused agitation outside of Washington as well.

Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Trump’s best-seller “The Art of the Deal,” has been increasingly vocal lately about warning against Trump on president.

On Thursday night, he issued his latest warning. “To undecided voters: Trump wants to be Putin, a despot & dictator. The world may not recover. Save your children and grandchildren,” Schwartz said on Twitter.

Conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who often focuses on foreign policy matters, offered a more nuanced of a view. “Putin's an evil man. POTUS a good but incompetent man. Putin has served his country's national interest better,” Hewitt tweeted Friday morning.

Democrats also piled on. Following Hillary Clinton’s declaration on Thursday that Trump’s comment comparing Putin to Obama is “not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country, as well as to our commander in chief — it is scary,” her running mate Tim Kaine hit both Trump and Pence on Friday.

Kaine, a senator from Virginia, said his “heart sunk” when he heard Pence agree with Trump.

“What about invading other countries is leadership? What about running our economy into the ground is leadership? What about persecuting LGBT Russians is leadership? What about setting up journalists and imprisoning them and killing them is leadership? There is a difference between dictatorship and leadership,” Kaine said, appearing on CBS This Morning. “If you didn’t understand that you wouldn’t get out of a fifth-grade civics exam.”

David Axelrod, Obama’s former campaign chief strategist, said Friday that Trump should take a hard look at Obama’s approval ratings before repeating his claim that Putin is superior.

"Donald Trump is so fond of quoting polls, you think he would read the ones where the president has a majority getting him high marks for his presidency," he said.