Putin’s favorite
Andrei Illarionov October 1, 2024
On September 5th, Vladimir Putin publicly named his favorite for the U.S. presidential election. At the Eastern Economic Forum session, a host asked him, “Do you have a favorite in the U.S. presidential elections?” Here’s Putin’s word-for-word answer:
“I’ve already said - our favorite was the current president, Mr. Biden. But they’ve taken him out of the race. Then he recommended all his supporters to back Ms. Harris. So that’s what we will do, too. We shall support her. She laughs so expressively and infectiously that it shows everything’s fine with her. And if everything’s fine with her, then…”
Then he paused and suddenly started talking about Ms. Harris’ opponent:
“You see, this Trump put in place so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia that no [US] president before him had ever done. And if everything’s fine with Ms. Harris, then maybe she’ll refrain from such actions.”
American media was quick to claim Putin was joking. The New York Times said “most observers” believe Putin spoke “in jest.” The AP claimed Putin had a “teasing tone.” Reuters wrote Putin’s comment was “teasing” and an “ironic remark.” Bloomberg claimed it was “presidential trolling.” CBS called it a “very tongue-in-cheek endorsement.” Every article cited U.S. intelligence agencies’ claims that the Kremlin prefers a Trump victory in November.
Apparently, American journalists know what Putin thinks and why he made such a statement, despite not speaking Russian or knowing much about Putin.
As for U.S. intelligence agencies, their record on Russia, especially as it relates to elections, is abysmal. 51 so-called experts claimed in 2020 that Hunter Biden’s emails detailing his influence-peddling scheme to be Russian “disinformation.” In 2023, the Department of Justice admitted it knew in 2019 that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden. Despite that, the FBI pressured Facebook and Twitter to limit the story, weeks before the Presidential election.
Putin’s real attitude
So, what is his real attitude towards candidates in the U.S. presidential election? Let’s review what Putin said, point by point.
First, Putin publicly confirmed that he had a favorite in the American presidential race before: “I’ve already said - our favorite was Mr. Biden.” This is Putin’s fourth statement over seven months, in which he has endorsed Joe Biden as his preferred U.S. Presidential candidate.
Second, Putin couldn’t resist the pleasure of mocking the current U.S. administration, emphasizing it wasn’t Biden who left on his own, but: “they took him out of the race.”
Third, Putin announced that his favorite now is Ms. Harris.
Moreover, fourth, Putin has dared to loudly proclaim: “We will support her.”
Fifth, Putin even gave two reasons why he supports Ms. Harris - first, it was Biden’s request to his supporters and second, Kamala’s style of laughter.
Sixth, Putin really let loose. He suggested to Ms. Harris her future policy in the case of her success:
“Maybe she will refrain from sanctions against Russia,” that is, against the Putin regime and Putin personally.
Putin also used this opportunity to slam Mr. Trump by showing his personal attitude to “this Trump” as well as his political claims to him: “He introduced a huge number of sanctions against Russia.”
While Biden enacted far more sanctions than Trump, the quality and effectiveness of Trump’s sanctions are far superior. Trump stopped the construction of Nord Stream, expelled one hundred Russian diplomats, closed the Russian consulate in San Francisco, refused to extend the START treaty, lifted restrictions on energy production and export, withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, and annihilated the Wagner PMC in Syria.
On the other hand, numerous Biden sanctions did not prevent the Kremlin from receiving more than half a trillion dollars in extra revenues from export over last two and half years that allowed Putin to wage horrible war against Ukraine, and to bribe part of the Russian population while terrorizing the other.
During Mr. Trump’s presidency Russia’s GDP grew cumulatively by 4.1%, during Mr. Biden’s presidency - with formally many more sanctions - Russia’s GDP cumulatively grew much faster - by 13.4%. During Mr. Trump’s presidency, Russia’s average annual GDP was $1.6 trillion, during Mr. Biden’s presidency, it has been $2.04 trillion, or 27% more.
Putin’s courtiers
Putin’s courtier’s comments are also revealing.
A few moments after Putin’s remarks, propagandist Pavel Zarubin from TV Channel One clarified with Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, whether he likes Harris’s laughter. The grinning Peskov answers: “Now, yes. Each of us now should fall in love with Kamala Harris’s laughter.” In response to the question of how things were before, Peskov explains, again with a laugh: “Well, before, we were observing, waiting for signals. Now we’ve received this signal.”
In fact, both of them received the signals at least five days earlier. A trial balloon on this matter was launched on September 1st. Zarubin, smirking, asked Peskov: “Biden is now out of the race, so who is our candidate now?” And Peskov, also smirking, answered: “We don’t have a candidate. But of course, the Democrats are more predictable. And what Putin said about Biden’s predictability applies to almost all Democrats, including Ms. Harris.” In other words, Peskov clearly and unambiguously said: Putin’s favorite is Kamala Harris on September 1st.
In this same dialogue, Zarubin posted both on Channel One and on his Telegram channel, Peskov did not hide his negative attitude to Trump: “I don’t think there is a magic wand. It is impossible to do anything within 24 hours… You can imagine this hypothetically, but this is from the realm of fantasy.”
Predictable old-school politician vs. contrarian fighter strengthening NATO
Putin made his position public on February 14th, 2024. Putin summoned his good acquaintance Zarubin, who asked: “We have the same relevant question for us: who is better, Biden or Trump?” Putin responded straight and unequivocally: “Biden.” Putin further explained his choice.
On Trump, Putin said: “Trump is not a systemic politician. He has his own view on the topic of how the U.S. should develop relations with its allies. What is Trump’s position? He wanted to make Europeans increase their defense spending. And I think that NATO is already unnecessary, there’s no sense in it anymore.”
Thus, for Putin, Trump’s main threat is his contrarian nature, unpredictability, the past and future increase in NATO defense spending, and strengthening NATO’s opposition to the Kremlin’s aggression.
On Biden, Putin has different view: “In Switzerland, they already said that Biden is incapable. Well, yes, he peeked at his paper somewhere, getting out of the helicopter, he hit his head on the helicopter. Well, who among us hasn’t hit their head somewhere?” Putin asks rhetorically. “I’m not a doctor, I don’t consider myself entitled to make any comments on this matter. Biden is an experienced, predictable politician of the old formation.” That is, Biden’s main advantage for Putin is Biden’s old age, incapacity, predictability, and lack of effective resistance to Putin’s aggression.
One week later, Zarubin asked Putin about Biden calling Putin “a crazy SOB,” Putin answered: “You asked me who is preferable for us, for Russia. Biden is more preferable… You’re a Russian journalist, you asked me what’s better for us. That’s what I said then, that’s what I think now, and I can repeat it again - Biden!”
Another four and a half months passed. On July 4, in Astana, Zarubin approached Putin again: “You then said: Biden. Now it turns out that this bet turned out to be questionable because after the recent debates in the U.S., everyone is simply horrified by Biden. And in general, his participation in the election race is in question. Haven’t your political preferences changed?”
Putin was visibly quite irritated: “Nothing turned out to be questionable. What has changed? Nothing has changed. Was it unknown to us what could happen? It was known. In this sense, nothing has changed.”
Indeed, a week before that, on June 27, Joe Biden catastrophically failed during the U.S. presidential debate. Putin was shocked and had no answer at that moment what to do, except to say: “Nothing has changed. My bet hasn’t been questioned,” meaning nothing has changed his mind and he continued supporting Biden.
But even then, Putin didn’t miss the opportunity to assess Trump: “The fact that Mr. Trump declares that he is ready and wants to stop the war, we take this quite seriously.”
Putin’s statements on the 2024 U.S. presidential election is 6-0 against Trump
So, over the past 7 months, Putin, and his courtiers, Peskov and Zarubin, have publicly commented six times on candidates in the U.S. presidential elections. The overall score of these comments is 6-0 in favor of both Biden and Harris, and zero in favor of Trump.
Democrat party propaganda suggests that Putin is just pretending to support Ms. Harris, and in fact supports Mr. Trump. That would mean Putin did not want to deal with the predictable and weak Biden, and does not want to deal with the manically laughing Ms. Harris.
Instead, according to their logic, Putin wants “this Trump” - an unpredictable, capable fighter, risen from the ashes of judicial persecutions, impeachments, and assassination attempts - who imposed on the Kremlin stronger sanctions than any other U.S. president. Trump annihilated PWC Wagner in Syria, is promising to flood the world market with oil and gas, and to throw the Kyoto madness into the trash. All this would lead to a fall in world energy prices and, consequently, to dissipation of Putin’s extra revenues, drying up his resources to wage the war against Ukraine, weakening his grip on Russia. Moreover, it is Trump who promises to stop Putin’s war against Ukraine even before his own inauguration.
It appears Democratic Party propagandists are trying present Putin as complete idiot. But he is not.
Putin on Biden: Common values, common enemies
Four years ago, in an interview with Russia TV channel on October 7, 2020, on the eve of the previous U.S. presidential election between then-president Trump and his opponent Biden, Putin said:
“The greatest number of various kinds of restrictions and sanctions were introduced during the Trump presidency. Decisions on imposing new sanctions or expanding previous ones were made 46 times. The incumbent’s administration withdrew from the INF treaty. That was a very drastic step… Now the US has announced the beginning of the procedure for withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty. We have good reason to be concerned about that, too. A number of our joint projects, modest, but viable, have not been implemented - the business council project, expert council, and so on…”
His assessment of Biden was starkly different:
“As for the Democratic candidate, what can I say? First, the Democratic Party is traditionally closer to the so-called liberal values, closer to Social Democratic ideas, if compared to Europe. And it was from the Social Democratic environment that the Communist Party evolved.
After all, I was a member of the Soviet Communist Party for nearly 20 years, or more precisely 18 years. I was a rank-and-file member, but it can be said that I believed in the party’s ideas. I still like many of these left-wing values. Equality and fraternity. What is bad about them? In fact, they are akin to Christian values. Yes, they are difficult to implement, but they are very attractive, nevertheless. In other words, this can be seen as an ideological basis for developing contacts with the Democratic representative.
It is a fact that African Americans constitute a stable electorate, one of the electorates of the Democratic Party. It is a well-known fact, and there is nothing new about this. The Soviet Union also supported the African Americans’ movement for their legitimate rights. Back in the 1930s, Communist International leaders wrote that both black and white workers had a common enemy - imperialism and capitalism. They also wrote that these people could become the most effective group in the future revolutionary battle.
So, this is something that can be seen, to a degree, as common values, if not a unifying agent for us. I am not afraid to say so. This is true.
Do you remember - well, you are a young man, but people of my generation remember a time when huge portraits of Angela Davis, a member of the US Communist Party and an ardent fighter for the rights of African Americans, were on view around the Soviet Union.
Therefore, we believe that this is something we can talk about and that can be used as the basis for mutual understanding but this is far by no means all there is. For example, candidate Biden has said openly that he was ready to extend the New START or to sign a new strategic offensive reductions treaty. This is a very serious element of our potential collaboration in the future.”
Putin had very serious problems with Trump in the past and envisions to have them in the future.
But with Biden, Putin claimed that he has so much in common - from common values of equality and fraternity to common enemy of imperialism and capitalism. Naturally, in the 2020 election Putin supported Biden.
“Complete nonsense” and “utter rubbish” vs. “our favorite” and “we’ll support her”
Remarkably, four years prior to that, at the Valdai Club session on October 27, 2016, Putin exploded with indignation at the mere suggestion that Trump might be considered by someone as his favorite:
“Regarding the so-called favorites or non-favorites in the election campaign in the United States. First, an enemy image is created in the form of Russia, and then it is declared that Trump is our favorite. This is complete nonsense and utter rubbish, this is just a way of internal political struggle, a way of manipulating public opinion on the eve of the presidential elections in the United States itself.”
Eight years later, in 2024, Putin is not scared to declare calmly, openly, confidently, and, it must be said, justified: “Our favorite was the current president, Mr. Biden.” He’s been removed from the race. But he recommended all his supporters to support Ms. Harris. “That’s what we will do. We shall support her.”
From 2016 to 2024, Putin and his closest courtiers have made at least 8 public statements regarding his preferred candidates in U.S. presidential elections, in which Donald Trump participated. In all 8 statements, Putin spoke favorably of the other candidate, meaning either for Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris. In every contest, Putin’s choice has always been for Trump’s opponent.
As of September 5th, 2024, Putin solemnly promised that in the current U.S. presidential election he will support his current favorite, Kamala Harris.
https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/putins-favorite/