Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “actively hoping” that former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.

Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has long praised and even quoted the Russian leader on the campaign trail. At a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, earlier this month, the former president quoted Putin who criticized the numerous criminal charges that Trump is currently facing, all of which the former president has pleaded not guilty to.

“Even Vladimir Putin…says that Biden’s, and this is a quote, politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,” Trump quoted Putin as saying, who made the comment during an economic forum in eastern Russia in September. Putin did not name Biden in the original quote.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Trump and Putin has been criticized since the former president’s 2016 run when questions of Russia’s alleged election interference and possible coordination with the Trump campaign arose.

  • athos77@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    I dispute this. He’s not ‘actively hoping’, he’s ‘actively working’.

    • aew360@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I was unsure of how much of an impact Russia had on the election until I read about the Internet Research Agency in Russia. Hooooly shit it goes deeper than I thought

  • theodewere@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    people who want Trump should just skip all the drama and go live with Putin… take control of your life and move to Russia where people see things the way you do…

    • PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      They don’t really want to live in the country these laws and rhetoric build, they just want to smear shit all over the walls in a tantrum because the world isn’t giving them everything they want.

      Putin wants to see Trump in power for exactly that reason. A barely coherent buffoon, rubbing his soiled diaper all over the walls of a bigger, nicer house full of people he hates.

    • highenergyphysics@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Remember when GOP leaders flew to Moscow to hand deliver Putin a letter on the 4th of July like the good little dogs they are?

      I remember when we used to hang traitors.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    GOP / Trump treason is Putin’s only chance to end the Ukraine situation in his favor.

  • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    Lmfao, I don’t doubt Putin would love Trump back, and that the dictatorial love for each other is mutual (until the inevitable point where they have to turn on one another), but I wouldn’t believe a single word out of Trumps mouth, especially if they come after “and I quote…”. Why anyone still would, never mind base a news report on it, is beyond me…

    • deft@ttrpg.network
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      6 months ago

      Putin’s cronies don’t turn on him. Trump will never turn on Putin and talk bad about him

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        6 months ago

        He would, for the few seconds between Putin turning on him, and trump hitting the pavement post-defenestration.

        It might not be long, but he’s exactly the type to pull a “nice guy” and flip 180 the second he realises things aren’t going his way (which might be ages after everyone else around him realises, but the point still stands) - I’d wage good money that he’d be yelling, as he falls to his death, something along the lines of “I never really supported you anyway, you woke leftist!!1”, convincing himself (and no one else, of course) that he got the last word…

        • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          More like yelling up, ‘thank you Vladdie for not releasing the pedophilia tapes!’

          Splat (even sounds like a Russian onomatopoeia)

        • Magnor
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          6 months ago

          That is putting way too much stock in Trump’s basic human decency.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    6 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, has long praised and even quoted the Russian leader on the campaign trail.

    He added: “Yes, Putin and for that matter other criminal enterprises like the North Koreans are actively hoping to have Mr. Trump back in office, where in my personal opinion, he would be devastatingly bad for U.S. national security.”

    McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, was in the U.S. Army for 32 years and later served as director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton.

    Newsweek reached out to McCaffrey via X direct message, Trump’s campaign via email and the Russian government via online form.

    Following Trump’s 2016 win against his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an investigation into possible Russian interference in the election.

    Putin authorized “influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the U.S,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence report said.


    The original article contains 633 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Not really - this is a big deal

      ‘Actively hoping’ is a weird way of saying it. Pootin is actively pursuing it - primarily through social media disinformation

      It will ramp up bigly throughout the year

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Pootin is actively pursuing it - primarily through social media disinformation

        You mean just like in 2020 and 2016 and probably previous elections?

        • Pretzilla@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Indeed. Though 2016 was also about election machine hacking, which they avoided doing in 2020 due to the high scrutiny.

          I’m expecting that reprised in '24.

          (moving to hand marked paper ballots + audits will help greatly to avoid that again)

        • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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          6 months ago

          And don’t forget that congressional Republicans have sued to stop the federal government from helping to prevent any international propoganda efforts and have been harrasing any independent researchers who have been tracking it! And we have sites like X who have bascially just said propoganda and disinformation is welcome on our websites, have at it. So it’ll be intensified if anything. All the gop basically on putin’s payroll.