today he s on the offensive. today he s going after western liberal institutions. he s going after alliances like nato and america s democracy. that s part of the strategy of making russia great is to make us weak in the international system. there is this piece that talks about the dilemma that putin faces that essentially he has to exit strategy. are we looking at president donald trump being president for life? well, he definitely doesn t have a strategy or political party and hasn t named a successor. he s afraid of competition. as you said in the opening piece, he s running against nobody, there s been no competition forever. mr. navalny, he s just banned. and when you don t have competition, you re not as sharp. you don t have people that can replace you.
vladimir putin? so mr. trump said he thinks that putin is a smart guy after he found out that the russian president does not plan to retaliate against the united states for punishing the kremlin for allegedly interfering with the u.s. election. and trump ally governor mike huckabee said today that the trump flattery of putin is all part of a larger plan. i don t think donald trump has any illusion about helping to make russia great again but i think he understands that putin has an ego, putin is not necessarily a nice guy, but if you re going to deal with him at all deal with him with some respect and it may be easier to work with him and to get him not to do the things you don t want him to do. next week the only thing we know of mr. trump s schedule is a briefing where high-level u.s. intelligence officials plan to tell him what evidence they have that makes them so sure it was russia and not another country