The media were thrilled in late February 2022, when, immediately after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Trump called Putin a "genius."  On Feb. 23, 2022, MSNBC's Ja'Han Jones, attempting to revive the Russia hoax that gave leftist lives meaning until it became clear that it was a Hillary Clinton–funded hoax, claimed that it is "obvious" that "Donald Trump ... is acting like a Russian agent."  Jones claims that Trump "praised Russian President Vladimir Putin's military aggression against Ukraine as fears of war in the region grow" and that Trump "continues to be open in his support for the Russian government and its goals."

Both claims are transparently false.  If one is going to discuss any issue seriously, one must be able to make distinctions, especially simple ones.  This used to be taught in our universities, in the old days when they taught basic English language comprehension and critical reasoning, but that was before they became adolescent political organizations.  Assuming that one can distinguish between a person and an invasion, which should be easy because the person at issue (Putin) weighs about 155 pounds, whereas an invasion involves lots of tanks and explosions, Trump praised Putin's intelligence, not his invasion.  Trump explicitly says in the same discussion that if he were president, he would have successfully opposed Putin's government and goals.  Hopefully, Jones can manage this taxing distinction in the future.

Trump praised Putin for several reasons.  First, Trump is a political realist; MSNBC and the Muppets (and what remains of most of the news media and Democrat party) are not.  Since Putin's job as president of Russia is to defend Russian interests, Trump expects him to do so.  Jones may hope Putin agrees to sing "We Are the World" with Biden and Mary Poppins, but it isn't going to happen and would have no consequence if it did.

Second, there is a reason Trump flatters Putin (and Kim Jong-un and President Xi).  These people are alpha males and narcissists.  They are also all ruthless.  If Trump were the president, he would have to deal with them as they are, not as he wishes them to be, in order to advance American interests.  He must, therefore, convey to them that he respects them and their right and duty to advance their countries' interests.  His message to Putin must be: "I respect your duty to defend Russia but I have a duty to defend the United States.  Let's find a way that we can both do our duties and return home to report successful negotiations to our two peoples."

Third, the ultimate reason Trump wanted some rapprochement with Russia is that he understands that as much of a problem as Russia is, China is, in the longer term, the bigger problem.  Whereas Russia's economy is roughly 1/10 the size of the U.S. economy, China's economy is almost at parity now.  Trump correctly wanted to bring Russia closer in order to create a more united front against a rapidly rising China.

Fourth, it is entirely obvious that Trump's primary motivation in calling Putin a "genius" is to contrast Putin's ruthless intelligence with that of our own clueless Democrat leaders.

Unlike the denizens of the faculty lounge, whose main preoccupation in life appears to be to make witty repartees against their peers, and members of the media, whose main aim appears to be to get attention by making outlandish claims, Donald Trump is a businessman.  This means he must actually accomplish things, build things, whether it be a building or a relationship, not merely make witty remarks to impress academics, "journalists," or children.

What is most peculiar about the Democrats' and media's continuing efforts to create a Trump-Russia collusion narrative out of nothing is that it has typically been the Democrats that have trusted Russia more, illustrated by Obama's mistaken assertion in the 2012 presidential debates that Romney was wrong that Russia is still a major threat.

Going even farther back in time, the Democrats and the news media were not hyperventilating when Obama's secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who was later in 2016 gifted by Obama with the amusing narrative that she was the most qualified person ever to run for U.S. president, met with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in order to present him with a "reset" button to put U.S.-Russia relations on a new more positive footing.  Trying to establish a positive relationship with Russia, which is transparently a good thing to do, became a mortal sin only when Donald Trump tried to do it in 2016 and the Democrats and the media could not find a better dirty trick with which to damage him.

YouTube screen grab.

The Clinton-Lavrov meeting took place in March of 2009 in Geneva, when Secretary Clinton presented Lavrov with a red button that had both the word "reset" and the Roman alphabet translation of the Russian Cyrillic-script word "peregruzka," which was supposed to be the Russian word for "reset" but actually means "overcharged."  The correct word for "reset" would have been "perezagruzka."  In addition, the type of button used was the sort that is commonly used as an "emergency stop" button on industrial equipment.  That is, in an attempt to reset new positive relations with Russia, Hillary the Great presented Lavrov with a button that indicated that the United States would overcharge Russia and symbolized not a new positive start, but the exact opposite: an emergency stop.  It would have been easy enough for Hillary to discover the correct Russian word to put on the button by calling a 19-year-old sophomore Russian student at George Washington University, but "the most qualified person ever to run for president of the United States" was unable even to manage this simple undergraduate-level research.

One might reply that Hillary's mistakes concern only symbolism, but one would think that one might muster the effort to be a tad more careful when dealing with a longstanding hostile nuclear power.  However, what the story of Hillary's botched "reset button" really shows is that these narratives produced by the Democrat elites, that Obama is the smartest person in the world, that Hillary is the most qualified candidate ever to run for president, that Biden is has a vast record of international experience, etc., are just that: narratives cooked up in Democrat strategy session and, with the help of a subservient media, fed to gullible peasants, not actually to solve the people's problems, but to get power for themselves by winning elections.

The consequences of this cynical manipulation of the voters illustrated by Jones, but certainly not limited to him, can be seen in the chaotic, dangerous world that emerged in the first year of the Biden administration.  Picking a president is not a game between warring 9th-grade lunch tables, and it would be to the good if our elites and the "news" media would stop treating it as one.  For despite the relentless Democrat/media spin machine, if one looks to actual real-world results, as opposed to empty words, the Trump administration is still the only one in the last 20 years during which Russia did not invade a foreign country.