Everything Trump Does Makes Perfect Sense... If You Understand He’s a Russian Asset
- john raymond
- May 13
- 4 min read
The biggest mistake analysts, pundits, and citizens make when trying to understand Donald Trump is treating him like a traditional American political actor. They analyze his decisions through a domestic partisan lens, assume he has a coherent national platform, or try to reconcile his bizarre behavior as the flailing of an incompetent narcissist. But this approach yields only confusion. Trump contradicts himself constantly. He undermines allies while praising adversaries. His policy “wins” often hurt his own base. The chaos seems inexplicable—unless you adopt the only theory that consistently makes sense of it all: Trump is functioning as a Russian asset.
Once you accept this framework, every major contradiction dissolves into strategic clarity. Trump doesn’t behave erratically; he behaves with astonishing consistency if his goals are not American prosperity, peace, or stability—but rather the systematic destabilization of the United States and the empowerment of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. From his rhetoric to his policies, from his alliances to his betrayals, every step he takes aligns with a core asymmetrical goal: weaken the West, empower the Kremlin, and create space for autocracy to flourish at home and abroad.
Let’s start with his behavior toward Ukraine. Trump consistently undermines Ukrainian sovereignty while parroting Russian propaganda. In 2019, he withheld $400 million in military aid from Ukraine to extort President Zelenskyy into smearing Joe Biden—a move that not only triggered impeachment, but also signaled to Russia that American support for Ukraine could be bargained away. He has since praised Putin as “smart” and “savvy” for invading Ukraine and has cast doubt on the moral clarity of U.S. aid. Most recently, as Russia prepared for its Victory Day celebrations in 2025, Trump’s role in helping broker a three-day ceasefire was not to promote peace, but to grant Putin a symbolic win. And when Ukraine pushed back, Trump began pressuring them to accept the deal anyway—again, not to end the war, but to give Moscow a propaganda edge.
This isn’t diplomatic ineptitude. It’s complicity.
Or look at NATO. Trump’s open hostility toward the alliance has been one of the clearest signals of his alignment with Russian interests. He has repeatedly threatened to pull the U.S. out, denigrated Article 5, and accused our allies of freeloading—even as Russia launches cyberattacks, funds disinformation, and militarizes its Western border. Undermining NATO has long been a strategic goal for Putin, whose ambitions depend on dividing Europe and dismantling collective defense structures. Trump’s rhetoric—and more importantly, his policy vacuums—serve that end. Each time he casts doubt on the alliance, he strengthens Russia’s strategic position.
Even his domestic policies read like sabotage when viewed from this angle. His handling of COVID-19, a crisis that paralyzed American health systems and economy, was an exercise in destabilization. He attacked science, undermined public trust, and fueled vaccine disinformation. The result? A divided, weakened nation. His trade wars disrupted supply chains without strategic payoff, his tax cuts ballooned the deficit while favoring oligarchic wealth extraction, and his war on federal institutions—from the DOJ to the intelligence community—hollowed out America’s bureaucratic resilience. These aren’t the missteps of a buffoon. They’re the deliberate dismantling of civil infrastructure. That’s not chaos; it’s strategic erosion. See how Xi is not firmly back in Putin's camp? Planned.
And what of his relationship with Putin himself? From the infamous Helsinki summit—where Trump publicly took Putin’s word over American intelligence—to repeated secret conversations with the Russian leader (some of which were never properly transcribed or logged), Trump’s subservience is unique in U.S. presidential history. He has never condemned Putin’s human rights abuses with seriousness, never penalized Russian aggression with consistency, and never shown the moral outrage demanded by Russia’s war crimes. Instead, he fawns. He flatters. He acquiesces.
For years, Trump’s defenders claimed there was “no collusion.” But they never answered the right question. The right question isn’t whether Trump held a signed loyalty contract with Putin. The right question is: whose interests are consistently served by Trump’s actions? The answer is clear. Time and again, whether through military destabilization, economic confusion, or political division, Trump has delivered for the Kremlin.
Some observers cling to the belief that Trump is just a clown, a bloviating fool who stumbles his way through ideology. But this is intellectual cowardice. It is far easier to believe in stupidity than treason. It is less frightening to believe that Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing than to accept that he knows exactly what he’s doing—and it’s not for America. But look at the outcomes. The Ukraine deal, the Xi-Putin realignment, the European fracture, the glorification of domestic autocracy. None of these are accidents. They are the result of asymmetric warfare, and Trump is not a victim of it. He is an instrument.
This is why people misunderstand Trump. They expect a normal politician who says what he means and means what he says. But Trump lies about his goals. He lies about his allegiances. He lies about who he serves. His “America First” slogan was never about America; it was about removing American constraints. His attacks on the deep state were not about rooting out corruption; they were about clearing out resistance. His praise for dictators was not accidental; it was aspirational. The only unifying theme of his presidency is the advance of authoritarian power structures—particularly Russia’s.
So yes, Trump’s actions make perfect sense—if you understand that they were never meant to help America. They were meant to undermine it. And they have. Every word, every decision, every betrayal points to the same strategic map: a world reordered not around democracy, but around force. Around fear. Around fealty. Around Putin.
In that world, Trump is not the champion of America. He is the tool of its undoing.
And the sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the sooner we can begin to fight back.
PUTIN is TRUMP's handler. That has been my belief for years. I have shared that belief with people that I know and that I've met for almost as long, and I'm astonished at how difficult it is to get them to fully understand what I'm talking about when I describe my views of what TRUMP is doing. I think TRUMP, his handler, and his benefactors are attempting to overthrow the United States government, and thereby the United States. One of the ways they're going about that takeover is by driving wedges and spreading chaos ("Strategic erosion"). TRUMP is being told by PUTIN how to "divide and conquer."