The existence of other influences does not diminish the fact that Trump is enamored with Putin (and most "strong man" dictators generally, but Putin in particular) and it does impact his foreign policy decisions and those of his administration (Hegseth straight up canceled weapons shipments to Ukraine for 2 weeks in the aftermath of the Oval Office meeting thinking it would please the boss).
Trump is currently quite mad at Putin because Putin refused to accept Trump's terms. They are not friends, and never have been. Meanwhile, there's another foreign leader that Trump has decided to start a war on behalf of—but the leadership of the other American party loves that foreign leader just as much as Trump does, so their loyal media outlets downplay it and distract with the fake Russia nonsense.
And yet, that hasn't translatd into additional support for Ukraine. In fact, Russian oil sanctions are lifted for the second month in a row, and Congress Republicans haven't put a Russian sanctions bill on the table because Trump doesn't want one.
> Russian oil sanctions are lifted for the second month in a row
Yes, because of aforementioned war Trump chose to start on behalf of aforementioned genocidal other foreign leader.
Do you understand the difference between:
- Imposing heavy sanctions on a foreign leader and his nation, and giving extensive support to the military forces actively fighting them—but not going quite as far as some would like; versus
- Giving tens of billions of dollars, plus large quantities of irreplaceable military hardware, in support to a nation and its military; having very regular friendly discussions with its leader, and inviting him often to visit in person; commanding your own troops to fight and die on his behalf; and torching the global economy and your own political prospects for his benefit
To what point? Do we actually think Trump would use a Trump phone? Otherwise, they'd just be getting data on die hard MAGA types that have nothing to do with anything juicy