Tag Archives: trump

Watch the Moment the Gloves Finally Came Off Between Trump and Cruz at the GOP Debate

by SaulArscott Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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During Thursday’s GOP debate, Sen. Ted Cruz was forced to weigh in on his eligibility to run for president of the United States—a controversy Donald Trump has been vigorously fanning as the Canadian-born senator has risen in the polls.

Cruz’s initial annoyance was palpable, but it was clear he was prepared for the “birther” issue to come up. Throughout the campaign, Cruz has avoided hitting back against Trump. But this was the moment the gloves finally came off.

“The Constitution hasn’t changed,” Cruz said. “But the poll numbers have. And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling.”

Watch the tense exchange below:

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Watch the Moment the Gloves Finally Came Off Between Trump and Cruz at the GOP Debate

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We Are Live-Blogging the GOP Debate in South Carolina

by MadelaineM07 Posted on January 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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Overall, this was sort of a boring debate, though it heated up a bit at the end. On a substantive level, there’s not much to say: nobody really said anything new. I guess that’s just the nature of things when you get to the sixth debate. My take:

Bush: He relentlessly tried to be reasonable. Apparently he thinks that eventually this will be a winning strategy, and maybe he’s right! But not tonight. He didn’t do anything to help himself.

Carson: At his best, he was in snoozeville. At his worst, he was incoherent. He’s a goner.

Rubio: He’s a hard duck to analyze. Rubio basically has a bunch of index cards in his head, and he recites one of them whenever he gets a question. The thing is, his index cards aren’t bad. And he recites them reasonably well. But eventually they just get old. That’s how it felt tonight—until he pulled out a brand new index card and attacked Cruz hard at the end. It was a good attack! It might help him. Maybe.

Trump: Fairly quiet by his standards. He did well responding to Cruz about “New York values.” His closing statement about the sailors was probably effective. His endless prevarication on the 45 percent tariff was a loser. Not his most dynamic performance, but he did OK. His numbers will probably go up.

Cruz: He was good tonight. He handled the natural-born citizen thing pretty well. Trump pwned him on New York values, but that helped Trump more than it hurt Cruz. His explanation of his tax plan was pretty much incomprehensible, and it was made worse when Rubio went after it, but I think that was his only real stumble. He’s a good debater, and probably picked up a few points tonight.

Kasich: He seemed like an island, totally disengaged from everyone else on the stage.

Christie: As always, he tried to seem like (a) the adult in the room and (b) the toughest guy in the room. It worked OK tonight, and he might pick up a point or two. But nothing more.

Overall, I’d say Trump, Cruz, and Rubio might gain a bit. Bush and Carson will drop a bit. Kasich and Christie will stay in nowhere-land.

Transcript here.

10:20 – Kasich: Mailman father blah blah blah. Bush: “Detailed plans count.” Oh Jeb…. Christie: Dammit, America is a hellhole and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Carson: Zzzzz. Rubio: Obama wants to ruin America. Hillary too. Cruz: Benghazi! Radical Islamic terrorism! Political correctness! Trump: If I’m president, we will win on everything we do.

10:19 – Time for closing statements. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

10:13 – Bush: We just heard a big spat between two “backbench” senators. Burn!

11:11 – Ooh. Big attack on Cruz from Rubio. Cruz says half the things Rubio said were false. But what about the other half?

11:04 – “We want Rand! We want Rand!” Well, don’t we all?

11:01 – Is it a blind trust if Don, Eric, and Ivanka Trump run the company? Um, no. Pretty sure it’s not. But I’ve actually been a little curious about what Trump would do with his company if he won.

10:57 – Christie says current Republican Congress “consorted” with Barack Obama. Quelle horreur!

10:55 – Big fight between Rubio and Cruz. Now Christie comes in to break it up. Let’s talk entitlement reform!

10:52 – Rubio says that Cruz’s tax plan would be bad for seniors. He’s right, but I doubt anyone understood what he said.

10:49 – Carson just gave an answer that I flatly didn’t understand. I’ll have to review it later.

10:46 – It’s tax time. I’m guessing everyone is in favor of cutting them. Especially on corporations and the rich.

10:43 – Now Cruz says his business tax is like a tariff. No, it’s not. But who’s counting, anyway?

10:41 – Cruz says Trump and Bush are both right about China. Such a peacemaker. The answer is a flat tax. Wait, what? What did I miss?

10:40 – Boos when Trump attacks Bush. The arena must have a big Bush cheering section.

10:39 – Trump also wants a trade war against Japan.

10:38 – Rubio: the answer to all our problems is to do the opposite of Barack Obama.

10:36 – So…Trump says the NYT lied, but I guess they didn’t. Imagine that. Trancript here.

10:35 – OK, but what about the tariff, Donald? Blah blah blah. Biggest bank in the world has an office in his building. But he’s totally open to a tariff.

10:35 – Did Trump call for 45 percent tariff on China? He says, of course not. He says he’d only do it if he stayed mad at them. Or something.

10:30 – Bush still trying to be reasonable. It’s so crazy it might work!

10:29 – “Radical Islamic terrorism.” Say it. SAY IT!

10:24 – Trump: “There’s something going on and it’s bad.” I guess that’s Trump’s campaign in a nutshell.

10:22 – Bush: “You can’t make rash statements.” Exciting as always!

10:21 – Jeb Bush steps up and defends letting Muslims into the country. Good for him.

10:19 – No follow-up, of course.

10:18 – These guys have lots of criticism of Obama, but they sure are shy about proposing actual concrete measures to step up the fight against ISIS.

10:15 – Should we send 20,000 ground troops to Iraq to fight ISIS? Carson says we should just give the military whatever they ask for. That’s it. And we should send in lots of special ops to put ISIS on the run. Uh huh.

10:11 – The fights between Trump and Cruz have been amusing, but generally speaking this debate has been pretty boring. Lots of canned applause lines and not a lot else.

10:10 – Does Saudi Arabia suck? Kasich says they need to stop funding radical clerics and madrasses. But what if they don’t?

10:07 – Ooh. Bush brings out the old Jerusalem chestnut. Go Jeb!

10:05 – New York values? William F. Buckley came out of Manhattan! New Yorkers were great after 9/11! So there.

10:01 – Sorry for the hiatus. So what’s going on? Guns? Looks like everyone is in favor of guns, guns, and more guns.

9:37 – The hamsters that power motherjones.com seem to be tired tonight. Sorry about that. If you’re having trouble commenting, keep trying!

9:34 – Cruz mostly treats natural-born citizen controversy as a joke. Probably smart.

9:31 – Audience booing Trump again.

9:30 – Audience booing Trump when he starts talking about polls.

9:27 – Audience not happy that Neil Cavuto asks Cruz about whether he’s a natural-born citizen. Cruz calls it a “birther” theory.

9:23 – Ah, an old favorite: Cruz turns a million-dollar loan from Goldman Sachs into an attack on the liberal media. That never gets old, does it?

9:20 – Trump says Syrian refugees are Trojan horses.

9:19 – Carson: What if someone hit us with an EMP, cyber-attack, and dirty bomb all at once? That would be pretty bad.

9:18 – Carson already whining about not getting enough questions.

9:17 – Rubio: Benghazi! Also: Obama has betrayed Israel, gutted the military, and apologized on ten world tours. That’s quite the memorized applause list.

9:13 – Bush: ISIS has a caliphate the size of Indiana! Also, US military has been totally gutted. Can’t even project power anymore.

9:11 – I wonder if anyone is going to acknowledge that American sailors did cross into Iranian waters near a major military base?

9:09 – If economy collapses next January, Kasich will balance the budget. That should work great.

9:06 – Cruz just can’t wait to bring up the American sailors. Ugh. Apparently he would have nuked Tehran immediately upon their capture.

8:57 – “The pirates are fighting in advance.” Huh?

8:48 – What will Donald Trump say tonight? In just a few minutes we’ll find out!

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We Are Live-Blogging the GOP Debate in South Carolina

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Fox Should Ask the GOP Candidates These Questions at Tonight’s Debate

by DarrylSwitzer Posted on January 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Thursday night, the Republican 2016 wannabes will once again gather for a debate, with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary just weeks away. Though each of these candidates has been on the debate stage multiple times this campaign—and has occasionally granted interviews to reporters—there are still many questions that they have not had to address. So editors and reporters at Mother Jones have compiled a short list of queries that we’d put to the GOP candidates. Kudos to Fox Business Network if any of these get asked.

Donald Trump

* When you appeared on the talk show of conspiracy theory promoter Alex Jones, you told him that his “reputation is amazing” and added, “I will not let you down.” Jones has championed many conspiratorial notions, including that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School never happened and that the attacks on the World Trade Center were an inside job. So what’s “amazing” about him?

* Why did you cut a deal with Amar Mammadov—an Azerbajani businessman accused of cronyism and profiting off his family’s ties to the government—to open a new Trump hotel in Baku?

* How many new government employee will be needed to implement your plan to bar Muslims from entering the nation? Given that any would-be terrorist who happens to be Muslim would likely lie about his or her religion to reach the United States, you couldn’t rely on the statements provided by foreigners trying to get into the United States. So then wouldn’t you need an army of federal workers to investigate each person coming into the United States? And how much would this anti-Muslim program cost?

* Can you now explain what the nuclear triad is?

Ted Cruz

* Your father, Rafael Cruz, who is an evangelical pastor, has often resorted to fiery, if not extremist, rhetoric. He has called the United States a “Christian nation,” and he has said that President Barack Obama is an “outright Marxist” who “seeks to destroy all concept of God” and should be sent “back to Kenya.” Most of us would not want to be judged on the basis of what a relative says. But you have extensively used your father as a campaign surrogate and to recruit religious leaders as supporters of your campaign. Would you disavow these comments?

* You have described Trump’s efforts to raise questions about you eligibility to be president—due to your birth in Canada—as a “silly” sideshow. But some of your own supporters, such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa, have questioned whether Obama was born in the United States and whether he is eligible to be president—even though, like you, his mother was indisputably a US citizen. Have King and other conservative birthers engaged in a silly sideshow?

* As a candidate, you have advocated tort reform—that is, imposing a cap of $750,000 on punitive damages that can be awarded in cases of malpractice or corporate malfeasance. Yet when you were a lawyer in private practice, you twice worked on cases to secure $50 million-plus jury awards in tort cases. Why the double standard?

Marco Rubio

* You’ve supported background checks for gun purchases in the past. Now you’re attacking the president for a similar proposal. Why have you flip-flopped?

* In a recent campaign ad, you attacked Obama for spying on Israel. Do you believe the US government should never mount any intelligence-gathering operations regarding Israel and that the United States should not spy on Israel to detect possible Israeli intelligence actions aimed at the US government or American corporations?

Ben Carson

* More than half of every dollar your campaign has raised has gone into the bank accounts of the consultants you’ve hired to raise that money. Why should conservatives continue opening up their checkbooks for a cause that’s mainly enriching political professionals?

* In a 2013 book, you wrote that people who commit health care fraud should suffer “some very stiff penalties…such as loss of one’s medical license for life, no less than ten years in prison, and loss of all of one’s personal possessions.” Yet you are in business with a former dentist who pleaded guilty to health care fraud. How does a candidate who campaigns on honesty and integrity explain this?

* You are a Seventh-day Adventist, and in a talk you gave in 2014 you indicated that you accept the church’s belief that a time will come when Seventh-day Adventists will be imprisoned by the government and even put to death merely for observing the Sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday. Do you truly think the US government will one day round up, jail, and possibly execute Seventh-day Adventists?

* Please name your favorite surgeon general and explain your choice.

Jeb Bush

* Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy secretary of defense in your brother’s administration, was one of the architects of the Iraq War, and prior to the invasion he made a series of predictions about the war that were wildly inaccurate. Why did you sign him up as a foreign policy adviser for your campaign?

Chris Christie

* Your administration in New Jersey has vigorously fought open-records requests for a wide variety of government documents: your schedule, your travel records, and contracts you handed out following Superstorm Sandy. Do you have a problem with transparency?

John Kasich

* You’ve said, “When you die and get to the meeting with Saint Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer.” But as governor you have decreased food aid for the poor in Ohio in a manner that disproportionately affects minority communities. What do you think Saint Peter will say to that?

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Fox Should Ask the GOP Candidates These Questions at Tonight’s Debate

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Just Because Donald Trump Says It Doesn’t Mean You Have to Report It

by VictorXbocivluud Posted on January 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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Stop it, stop it, stop it, STOP IT! Just because Donald Trump says something calculatingly stupid and provocative doesn’t mean it has to be reported as front-page news. Everyone knows that his “Cruz is a Canadian” thing is ridiculous—and he wouldn’t bother saying it if he didn’t know that it was going to get loudly amplified by a media that just can’t say no to him.

Look: he’s a candidate. He’s in the lead. Reporters have to report what he’s doing. I get it. But stuff like this is such obvious media bait that it should be treated as such. It should get one line at the end of the day’s campaign roundup: “In other news, Donald Trump tried to gain attention once again with a goofy claim that Ted Cruz might not be a natural born citizen.” That’s all it really needs.

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Just Because Donald Trump Says It Doesn’t Mean You Have to Report It

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Trump’s First TV Ad Embraces His Most Controversial Ideas

by JaneTowrehvqdt Posted on January 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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A week after promising to open his ample war chest and start spending on television ads, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump unveiled his campaign’s first TV advertisement on Monday morning. Trump has previously aired ads on his personal Instagram account, but a mere month before the Iowa caucus, his campaign decided it was time to make the move to the airwaves.

The ad focuses on ISIS and immigration, and doesn’t shy away from the more controversial positions Trump has staked out. A voiceover from an ominous narrator promises that Trump will temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country, “quickly cut the head of ISIS and take their oil,” and build a wall along the southern border of the United States that Mexico will finance.

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Trump’s First TV Ad Embraces His Most Controversial Ideas

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The Airwaves May Soon Be Awash With Footage of Donald Trump Mugging in the Debates

by TWWTawnyalsjmn Posted on December 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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My colleague Russ Choma, who was apparently denied entry to a Donald Trump rally in chilly New Hampshire, nonetheless reports that Trump says he will soon begin spending millions of dollars on television ads in early primary states. Maybe so—or maybe it’s just Trump jabbering again. Who knows? But this is interesting:

In recent days, Trump’s campaign has faced a slew of new attacks from rivals and questions from the media about his viability. Jeb Bush’s campaign has been running regular anti-Trump ads in the Granite State, featuring Bush sternly scolding Trump at the most recent GOP debate, while Trump makes exaggerated and silly faces.

OK, OK, it’s not that interesting. But I thought “no use” clauses were pretty commonplace in political debates. You’re allowed to use clips from the debate for the purpose of news analysis, but not for advertising. But I assume Bush isn’t breaking any rules here, so I guess debate footage is fair game this year. That has the potential to be bad news for Trump.

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The Airwaves May Soon Be Awash With Footage of Donald Trump Mugging in the Debates

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10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015

by HugoMcBrayer Posted on December 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Another year is about to pass, which means we’ve managed to survive 12 months of cable news—and endure some fantastically awful segments that the networks churned out. But that doesn’t mean we emerged unscathed! Whether it was calling the president of the United States a “pussy” on live television or relentlessly covering Donald Trump’s circuslike presidential campaign, cable news had plenty of lowlights in 2015. Here are some of the most memorable ones:

San Bernardino shooting
Days after the shooting in San Bernardino, California, several media outlets were able to get inside the home of the two suspected shooters—access that involved a crowbar and a cooperative landlord. Despite the questionable circumstances, reporters from a slew of networks, including CNN and MSNBC, swarmed the residence. The resulting circus of cable TV coverage even disturbed some network hosts.

“I’m having chills down my spine, what I’m seeing here,” said CNN security analyst Harry Houck, as reporters on the scene continued to film throughout the home. “This apartment is clearly full of evidence.”

At one point, an MSNBC reporter zoomed in on a driver’s license that likely belonged to one of the suspects’ relatives.

Insulting the president
A Fox News contributor abandoned every sense of decorum when he slammed President Barack Obama’s terrorism strategy and called him a “pussy” on live television. The network suspended him for two weeks, finally answering the question we’ve all wondered: “Just what does it take to get suspended from Fox News?”

Migrant crisis and Syrian refugees
The international effort to resettle Syrian refugees sparked widespread concern about how refugees are vetted when they seek to be admitted into the United States, particularly in light of the deadly attacks in Paris. Instead of taking time to explain the complex and rigorous process, cable news shows often appeared to inflame safety concerns with misleading portrayals of refugees escaping violence in Europe and the Middle East:

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Fox News also appeared to lend legitimacy to a biblical prophecy that some have used speculate that the Syrian crisis may signal the end of times. Watch the report on the “spooky passage” below:

Gun control and mass shootings
Amid calls to strengthen gun control laws and end the gun violence epidemic, Fox & Friends aired a segment about how to teach kids how to take down an active shooter with these self-defense skills:

Freddie Gray
When protests erupted in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Baltimore resident who died from a spinal cord injury while in police custody, CNN chose to ignore the demonstrations in favor of covering every second of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

If you were seeking coverage of the rallies, contributor Errol Louis suggested viewers could “find a live feed” somewhere else.

When the network did report on Gray later, CNN led one online story by describing Gray as the “son of an illiterate heroin addict.”

Donald Trump
There are myriad factors that have led to the rise of Donald Trump as a major GOP presidential candidate. The media’s insatiable appetite (including our own, at times) to cover his inflammatory campaign rhetoric is definitely one of them. On cable news, Trump was practically unavoidable.

After announcing his plan to bar all Muslims from entering the United States if elected president, a slew of cable news shows scrambled to talk to Trump about the proposal, which gave Trump a huge platform for his offensive ideas:

Leggings
In one of the creepier clips of the year, Fox News featured an all-male panel to opine on how a woman should dress in public. The clothing item in question was leggings. In the segment, the official “Panel of Fathers” ruminates over “lady parts” and whether they’re comfortable with the “women in their life parading in public with leggings, because they ain’t pants.”

“Guardian Angels”
In which Fox News, a news organization, lends legitimacy to this photo of a “guardian angel.”

Happy holidays!

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10 of the Worst Cable News Moments of 2015

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Obama Ruined the Tea Party for All of Us

by RomeoPeakahbxr Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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A friend draws my attention today to a piece by National Review editor Rich Lowry about—of course—the wild popularity of Donald Trump among tea partiers. Lowry waxes nostalgic for the early tea party days of 2010, when being a “constitutional conservative” was all the rage, and wonders where it all went:

Trump exists in a plane where there isn’t a Congress or a Constitution. There are no trade-offs or limits….He would deport the American-born children of illegal immigrants. He has mused about shutting down mosques and creating a database of Muslims. He praised FDR’s internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

You can be forgiven for thinking that in Trump’s world, constitutional niceties—indeed any constraints whatsoever—are for losers….For some on the right, clearly, the Constitution was an instrument rather than a principle. It was a means to stop Obama, and has been found lacking.

My friend snickers at Lowry’s use of some, which does a whole lot of heavy lifting here. Technically, though, 95 percent is still some, so this is accurate. But a wee bit misleading, no? Anyway, this leads Lowry into an argument that, really, Trump is just Obama 2.0:

Trump is a reaction to Obama’s weakness but also to his exaggerated view of executive power….Whereas Obama has a cool contempt for his political opponents and for limits on his power, Trump has a burning contempt for them. The affect is different; the attitude is the same.

….A hallmark of Obama’s governance has been to say that he lacks the power to act unilaterally on a given issue, and then do it anyway. Progressives have been perfectly willing to bless Obama’s post-constitutional government. Trump’s implicit promise is to respond in kind, and his supporters think it’s about time.

Uh huh. So far, Obama has done OK in the Supreme Court, but no matter. Tea partiers believe Obama goes to sleep each night not by counting sheep, but by counting bonfires of Constitutions. Or, as Lowry admits, they pretend to believe this. In reality, it’s just a handy way to oppose Obama’s liberal policies.

Now, it’s never been clear to me why you need this kind of charade. Why not just oppose Obama’s liberal policies because they’re no good? I suppose it’s mainly a palliative for the rubes, who don’t like to think of themselves as meanspirited folks who dislike paying taxes to help the less fortunate. Instead, they can complain that Obama’s policies are unconstitutional; or that he’s running up dangerous levels of debt; or that he’s turning America into sclerotic old Europe. That sounds a lot nicer.

Anyway, Lowry’s actual goal in this piece is to come up with conservative arguments against Trump. That’s the Lord’s work, even if “Obama 2.0” seems a little unlikely to catch on. What’s more, I seem to recall that he’s a cat person in an office jampacked with dog people. And Christmas is right around the corner. So I’ll call a truce. No more writing about Donald Trump until Christmas is over. We all deserve a break.

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Obama Ruined the Tea Party for All of Us

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Jeb Abandons Jeb!

by wlqclksxq Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Perfect last-minute Christmas present for the low-energy person in your life who needs an extra exclamation point: Jeb!

Not the candidate, just his name—upbeat punctuation mark and all. The word has apparently lost its appeal. Even to the candidate.

Last winter, months before Jeb Bush announced he was running for president, a Miami intellectual property attorney filed a trademark request for the word “Jeb!” on behalf of a mysterious Delaware corporation called BHAG LLC. As we discovered this summer, BHAG was an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. This phrase came from one of Bush’s favorite business management books, and when he was governor he used this term to motivate his underlings. It wasn’t until Bush, as a declared candidate, filed his financial disclosure form in July that the world learned he directly owned BHAG.

One of BHAG’s few activities was to trademark “Jeb!” As is par for the course, the US Patent and Trademark Office accepted the submission and requested additional information before it would grant the trademark. But according to that office, on November 9 Bush’s application was officially abandoned. Technically, Bush has until January 9 to restart the process, but for now the name is not trademarked and open for anyone else to try to grab.

According to the original application, Bush wanted the name reserved for use on leather key chains, stadium cushions, stemware, stuffed toys, hair bands, and other cool stuff. In April, the USPTO asked BHAG to provide, within six months, written consent from Bush himself to use his name. Bush never responded. So the USPTO issued an abandonment notice regarding the trademark request.

Bush’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

To be fair, Bush has had many other things to worry about these past few months. But his chief antagonist, Donald Trump, did find the time to re-up his hold on “Trump,” and he added a trademark claim to cover the use of his name for books on how to succeed in business and politics.

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Jeb Abandons Jeb!

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Why Donald Trump Loves Vladimir Putin

by AlphonsVeasley Posted on December 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last week—before Donald Trump schlonged Hillary Clinton and charitably pledged not to kill journalists—there was a curious episode involving the GOP front-runner and Russian President Vladimir Putin that remains, even after the passage of several news cycles, worthy of a few dollops of reflection, since it may provide a true key to understanding Trump.

It all began when the Russian strongman hailed Trump as “a very bright and talented man.” He also pointed out the obvious: that Trump was the leader in the GOP presidential race. Trump replied with a bear hug. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, he proudly commented, “When people call you brilliant, it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia.” Though host Joe Scarborough pressed Trump, noting that several journalists critical of the Putin regime have been slain, the tycoon turned politician stuck with his admiration for Putin and replied, “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country.”

Days later, Trump declined to distance himself from his Putin-friendly remarks. He insisted it would be good for the United States if he became president because Putin respected him. Trump also defended Putin, saying, “If he has killed reporters, I think that’s terrible. But this isn’t like somebody that’s stood with a gun and he’s, you know, taken the blame or he’s admitted that he’s killed. He’s always denied it.” (According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “Russia remains the worst country in Europe and Central Asia region at prosecuting journalists’ killers…In nearly 90 percent of murders of journalists in Russia, no one is convicted.”)

Many Republicans and other human beings were astonished by Trump’s embrace of Putin. Mitt Romney was so enraged he put out a tweet. And I’m told that GOP insiders once again started telling each other that this Trump misstep—a candidate playing footsie with the repressive ruler of Russia!—would be the one to topple Trump’s tower-like standing in the polls. Well, perhaps. But, then again, Trump tends to not schlong himself.

Still, the episode left many members of the politerati puzzled: What could have prompted Trump to become a kissing Cossack of Putin? Though time has marched on, this question still warrants an answer. Or a theory. And I have one.

Trump is a narcissist—at least, several experts in narcissism have raised (quite strongly) this possibility. As Jeffrey Kluger, author of The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed—in Your World noted in Time, “To call Donald Trump a narcissist is, of course, to state the clinically obvious. There is the egotism of narcissism, the grandiosity of narcissism, the social obtuseness of narcissism.” And writing in the New York Times, Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory University, and Ashley Watts, a graduate student there, observed:

The political rise of Donald J. Trump has drawn attention to one personality trait in particular: narcissism. Although narcissism does not lend itself to a precise definition, most psychologists agree that it comprises self-centeredness, boastfulness, feelings of entitlement and a need for admiration.

They declared that it would be “inappropriate of us to offer a formal assessment of his level of narcissism.” But according to the Mayo Clinic, these are the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder:

Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
Exaggerating your achievements and talents
Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
Requiring constant admiration
Having a sense of entitlement
Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
Taking advantage of others to get what you want
Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
Being envious of others and believing others envy you
Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

Yes, mental health specialists should not diagnose anyone from afar. But it would be hard to read this list and point to a public figure who exhibits more of these traits than Trump. In Psychology Today, journalist Randi Kreger, who has written on personality disorders, applies this list to Trump’s statements and actions and finds—guess what?—compelling evidence for each symptom. Some experts have been so sure of Trump’s narcissism that they have been willing to brand him with the N-word merely on the basis of his public life. As Vanity Fair reported recently:

For mental-health professionals, Donald Trump is at once easily diagnosed but slightly confounding. “Remarkably narcissistic,” said developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” echoed clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis. “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example of his characteristics,” said clinical psychologist George Simon, who conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior. “Otherwise, I would have had to hire actors and write vignettes. He’s like a dream come true.”

Let’s assume that Trump, if he’s not a full-blown case of narcissistic personality disorder, is narcissistic-ish. And then let’s ask: How does a narcissist judge other people in his super-self-centered world? Certainly, it’s all about how these other people relate to the narcissist. And for a narcissist, what’s most significant is how others think of him. So in the case of Putin, what counts for Trump is how Putin regards Trump. If Putin says Trump is brilliant, then Putin must be okay. Other parts of Putin’s record—say, invading a country or running a corrupt, repressive regime—don’t matter as much. After all, those things don’t affect Trump directly.

Trump seems to inhabit a world that he views as one big green room, full of bold-faced names, with Trump as king of the hill. At campaign speeches, he often refers to famous people—the famous people in his world—by their first names, inviting his followers and supporters into this exclusive, otherwise-gated community. (His campaign is like one long episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.) And Putin is just another inhabitant with the sense to recognize Trump’s undeniable greatness. During a Republican presidential debate in early November, Trump boasted of forging a bond with Putin during a taping of 60 Minutes. He made it sound as if he and Putin had buddied it up in the green room at CBS: “I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates, and we did very well that night.” Trump the salesman was selling his connection with über-man Putin as a qualification for the presidency.

Well, it did not take fact-checkers long to report that Trump’s statement was a total lie. As Factchecking.org put it, “The two did appear on the same ’60 Minutes’ episode, which aired on Sept. 27. But journalist Charlie Rose traveled to Moscow for the two-hour interview with Putin, and Trump was interviewed by Scott Pelley in Trump’s Fifth Avenue penthouse in Manhattan.” In this instance, Trump’s big green room in the sky was a fantasy. Yet somehow, in Trump’s mind, his proximity to Putin via videotape elevated him to the level of a superpower leader. Clearly, Trump had a need to identify with Putin.

Trump’s full-on fib about getting to know Putin “very well” while both were being promoted by 60 Minutes did nothing to slow down Trump’s campaign. And it seems that the next time Trump had a chance to show everyone he was on Putin’s level—with Putin now identifying with Trump and endorsing his manifest brilliance—he seized it.

The Putin affair illustrates that Trump’s main currency is not money or power; it’s Trump-love. Putin showed it, and, for Trump, that defined the man. Putin, as far as Trump sees it, has passed the most critical test: He validated Trump’s magnificence. For a narcissist, what in the world could be more important?

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Why Donald Trump Loves Vladimir Putin

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