, Columnist
Trump’s Russia Fixation Has a Simple Explanation
He can’t separate the question of interference in the election from the question of his own legitimacy.
A matter of character.
Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images
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President Donald Trump’s behavior in Helsinki was both appalling and perfectly in character. He was, as he has been before, gullible or worse about Vladimir Putin’s lies. He treated the U.S. and Russia, again, as morally equivalent.
He was unwilling or unable, once more, to respond to a foreign adversary’s interference in our politics in the manner one would expect from the leader of a self-respecting nation. He refused, yet another time, to credit the unanimous conclusion of our intelligence services.