Corn of Mother Jones Is Beginning to Grasp the Truth
- john raymond
- May 30
- 3 min read
David Corn’s recent article in Mother Jones is one of the sharper takes we’ve seen in the mainstream or adjacent press when it comes to the Trump–Putin nexus. Unlike many who still hide behind the comforting fiction that Trump is merely a narcissistic bumbler being manipulated by a foreign strongman, Corn cuts closer to the truth: Trump’s connection to Putin is no accident, no momentary lapse, and certainly no case of being “played.” It is a long-standing, deep-running, and profit-motivated alignment.
But there’s still more that needs to be said. Corn does well to call Trump’s relationship with Putin “the original sin” of his presidency. He recognizes the full implications of the 2016 Russian interference campaign and Trump’s refusal to acknowledge—much less reject—the aid he received from a hostile foreign intelligence service. Yet Corn still stops short of naming the deeper, darker truth: Donald Trump is not merely compromised—he is a bought and paid for Kremlin asset.
We know this because of the financials.
Trump’s entire business empire, long before his presidency, was sustained by a lifeline of foreign capital after multiple bankruptcies made him radioactive to most U.S. banks. Where did the money come from? Time and again: Russia. Whether through oligarch-linked shell companies buying units in his buildings, laundering cash through golf courses, or offering sweetheart deals in Moscow, the pattern is unmistakable. In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. said it bluntly: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”
Why was Trump so eager to meet Putin during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow? Because he was chasing a Moscow tower deal backed by Russian capital. Even during the 2016 campaign, while publicly denying he had any business with Russia, Trump’s fixer Michael Cohen was privately pursuing the Moscow project—and reaching out directly to the Kremlin for help. These are not the actions of a man caught off guard by Russian interest. These are the actions of a man seeking continued favor from the system that kept him afloat.
And once in office, his behavior fit the profile of a Kremlin asset to a chilling degree. He denied Russia’s interference despite overwhelming intelligence consensus. He sided with Putin over U.S. agencies in Helsinki. He delayed aid to Ukraine while praising Russian aggression. He even tried to punish NATO allies for not paying enough while weakening the very alliance that serves as a check on Russian expansionism.
Corn captures the moral and strategic bankruptcy of Trump’s stance toward Ukraine, and his willingness to treat Putin not as a war criminal but as a fellow victim of Western “witch hunts.” Corn rightly points out that Trump sees his relationship with Putin not through the lens of geopolitics or democracy, but through grievance and transactionalism.
But to fully grasp the threat Trump poses, one must move beyond the language of metaphor. This is not just a “bromance.” This is not just “sympathy.” This is not even just a “bond.” It is a decades-long entanglement of financial dependency, political utility, and ideological alignment with a regime that views Western democracy as its primary enemy.
Corn is beginning to see this. He sees through the lies about “Russia, Russia, Russia,” and he is willing to remind readers that Putin’s aid to Trump wasn’t alleged—it was documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee and reinforced by every reputable intelligence agency in the West. He sees that Trump’s affinity for authoritarianism is not incidental; it is structural. What remains is to say the thing plainly:
Trump is not being played. He is playing a part. And it’s a part financed in rubles.
The country still hasn’t come to terms with what it means to have had a Kremlin-aligned figure in the White House. Corn is at least willing to look in that direction. Now the rest of the press needs to stop equivocating and follow his lead.
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