Writing in the New York Times, David Sanger highlighted the extent to which Donald Trump is going all out to support Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine:

President Trump’s intensifying effort in the past few weeks to rehabilitate Russia and usher President Vladimir V. Putin back into diplomatic society is remarkable for its speed, its characterization of Mr. Zelensky as the primary obstacle to peace, and its brazen denial that Russia is continuing the war that Mr. Trump says he is trying to end.
“Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine,” Mr. Trump said on Monday, speaking to reporters outside the White House as he left for a campaign rally. “They haven’t been doing much,” he said, making no mention of the Russian missiles and jet-powered drones that have been targeting apartment buildings in Kyiv and Ukraine’s surviving electricity grid.
In contrast, he said, “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. They’ve given nothing to us. Remember that.”

As Sanger noted, Trump’s support for Putin is unique in American history. Previous administrations have made deals with erstwhile adversaries, as Nixon did with China, and given up on support for failing allies, as the U.S. did in Vietnam and Afghanistan. But never before have we outright switched sides, let alone supported an aggressor while vilifying that aggressor’s victim.

What makes Trump’s support for Putin even more remarkable is that Russia has, by many accounts, been actively aiding Iran against America in the war Trump started. Who says so? Well, among others, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the aid goes beyond intelligence sharing that has helped Iran target U.S. forces. Russia has also reportedly been sending Iran explosives and weapons components.

What would Republicans be saying if a Democratic president were supporting a foreign dictator even as that dictator was helping another nation kill American troops? They would be crying “treason.” But this is all apparently “fine” with Trump.

What’s going on here? It’s important to understand that — as Phillips O’Brien documents — Trump hasn’t “pivoted” away from Ukraine toward Russia. He has been a Putin supporter all along.

Thus when Trump says that “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine,” who, exactly, does he mean by “we”? He cut off all economic and military aid to Ukraine as soon as he took office. Here’s total support for Ukraine, by country, since January 2025:

True, the U.S. continued to share military intelligence with Ukraine while allowing Ukraine to use Elon Musk’s Starshield and permitting European nations to transfer some U.S. weapons to Ukraine. But these actions cost America nothing. The most you can say is that until recently Trump shied away from actively sabotaging Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.

And now even that restraint is gone. According to Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. intelligence sharing was blocked “for some period of time,” although it appears to have resumed for now. Ukraine’s access to Starshield has been limited. And the Washington Post reports that the U.S. has been holding up European transfers of Patriot missiles to Ukraine.

There are two questions here. First, why does Trump love Putin and hate Zelensky? Second, why has he ripped off the mask and gone full pro-Russia in the past few weeks?

On the first question, Zelensky gave a blunt answer in a recent interview with the Financial Times: Trump, he asserted, has an instinctive affinity for autocrats and the super wealthy: “He speaks about it openly that he loves such people and he respects such people.” That’s clearly right.

I would add three points. First, Trump and his inner circle don’t just love autocrats. They hate democracy and rule of law — which means that they hate America and American values.

Second, Putin-worship was widespread on the authoritarian right even before Trump entered the picture, with many celebrating Russia’s anti-wokeness and perceived masculinity. Remarkably, the valorization of Russia’s supposed toughness has survived despite Russia’s repeated military humiliations. So Trump has been following a well-trodden path.

Finally, whatever else you may say about Zelensky, he’s a genuine hero, who showed great personal courage by staying in Kyiv when Russia invaded. And Trump surely resents the fact that Zelensky is everything he is not.

The second question is, why now? Why has Trump chosen this moment to switch from covert, deniable support for Putin to overtly, explicitly taking Russia’s side?

As I suggested yesterday, the answer lies precisely in Trump’s collapsing support at home. Nothing he does now is likely to avert Republican catastrophe in the midterms. Republican politicians have been going out of their way to avoid being seen with him on the campaign trail. Trump officials are already lawyering up in preparation for the probes a Democratic Congress will launch.

At this point, then, Trump effectively has nothing left to lose on the political front — and his political bankruptcy has freed him to become his worst self, indulging himself by doing what he always wanted to do — which includes supporting corrupt, murderous dictators.

And there will be much more of this to come. Trump can’t and won’t make America great again. But he can betray everything America stands for, and he’s doing it as we speak.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist and former professor at MIT and Princeton who now teaches at the City University of New York's Graduate Center. From 2000 to 2024, he wrote a column for The New York Times. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.