A pundit on Russian state television called on Russians and their government to declare openly their political support for Donald Trump in an eye-opening moment that comes as Mr Trump and his wing of the GOP have taken a softer stance towards Moscow amid the invasion of Ukraine.
The comments made by Igor Korotchenko, a pundit and editor-in-chief of National Defense, came during a panel discussion on Russia’s Channel 1 News, a state-run broadcaster. They were highlighted first by Julia Davis, founder of Russia Media Monitor.
“We should support Trump and not be shy about it,” he said. “We should support US politicians, like Trump, and other healthy conservative European powers who advocate for the normalisation of relations between Russia and the West.”
Mr Trump infamously advocated for just that while he was president and appeared alongside the nation’s leader, Vladimir Putin, at a joint press conference in which he cast doubt on the findings of his own intelligence agencies in regards to Russian interference in US political elections.
Ironically, while Mr Trump was in the White House, Mr Korotchenko was not his biggest fan. In 2019, he even suggested that Mr Trump had an “inferiority complex” towards eastern powers like China and Russia that often display military might through parades and other demonstrations.
The Trump-aligned wing of the GOP has emerged as the strongest source of resistance against the so-far bipartisan efforts to supply Ukraine with military and economic support amid its war with Russia and GOP politicians have come out as critics of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and corrurption that persists throughout Ukraine’s political system.
Some of those Trump-aligned members of Congress have faced blowback for their repeated embrace of talking points used by Russia’s government to justify its invasion of Ukrainian territory, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene who was accused of pining for a “slot on Russia Today”, referring to the Russian broadcaster RT, by her fellow Republican member Dan Crenshaw earlier this year.
