Here & Now

UW Professor Lends Insight to the Trump/Putin Summit

Frederica Freyberg:

Now to the very bumpy political road that leads from President Donald Trump’s Helsinki summit to his return to the U.S. The president started the week in Finland where side by side with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he accepted Putin’s denial of Russian meddling in U.S. elections. The post-summit remarks are in direct opposition to evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies. Midweek back in the U.S. and under pressure, President Trump provided a double negative clarification, only to then double-down off script on his belief that others could also be at fault for election interference. By week’s end, he indicated that Russian meddling had happened and he’s invited Putin to the White House. What does all of this mean to the present and the future of U.S.-Russia relations? We turn to an expert, Yoshiko Herrera is a UW-Madison of Political Science and the former director of the school’s Center for Russia, East Asia and Central Europe. Thanks very much for being here.

Yoshiko Herrera:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you describe President Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin as a disaster. I want to get to that in a minute but at week’s end, what do you make of his changing kinds of explanation as to what he said there?

Yoshiko Herrera:

Well there’s a lot of questions about what happened in the one-on-one conversation. I think that the back and forth from even the public press conference statements have only added to questions of what they discussed. In addition, a lot of information has come out of Russia about things that they discussed. Every day there’s a new sort of tidbit. And so that’s just leading a lot of people to wonder what they talked about. In terms of what was said publicly so far in the press conference, I think there’s already been a lot of discussion that taking Russia’s side in believing Vladimir Putin that Russia didn’t interfere in our elections, that’s been roundly criticized. There’s been a lot of criticism of the denigration of U.S. institutions, of our FBI, our Justice Department, etc. It’s almost too far gone now for people to bring up the issue of moral leadership and support for democracy but that is another facet of this. That this is a support for dictatorship. But actually another interesting thing is on the Russian side, they are concerned actually that the press conference was so bad that it’s actually hurt U.S.-Russian relations from their perspective because the reaction to Trump’s performance is going to stir up further anti-Russian sentiment. They actually are concerned that Putin came out too much ahead and it would have been better had there been a more normal appearance by Trump.

Frederica Freyberg:

That’s interesting. Going back to what’s being said in Russia about what happened in their private, two-hour meeting, is what Russia is saying markedly different from what we’ve heard in kind of dribs and drabs that the president has said they talked about a wide array of issues, including North Korea, Syrian, election issues.

Yoshiko Herrera:

Some of the things that I think have really raised eyebrows, one, the follow-up summit with Putin coming to the United States, that was a surprise. Yesterday’s news that there was discussion of a referendum in eastern Ukraine is very surprising, given Russia’s record of manipulating elections in its own country. The manipulated election in Crimea, our own election interference, the idea that they would solve Crimea conflict with a referendum organized by Russia is pretty outrageous but that came from the Russian ambassador.

Frederica Freyberg:

How unusual is it that these two leaders would meet without anyone else there, without any kind of record of this?

Yoshiko Herrera:

Well, one of the issues of record is that, there normally is a level of trust. So normally the American people — American political establishment would not have such a high level of distrust of our president. And hence we wouldn’t demand a third party recording or something of a conversation. We would accept that it’s okay for our president to meet with another president because we would expect our president to represent United States’ interests. But because of the inexplicable stance that Trump has taken, that’s what’s led to all these questions about why they met privately and what was the reason for that?

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think is behind President Trump seeming obsequious toward Vladimir Putin?

Yoshiko Herrera:

Well this is a very good question. And I think it’s a legitimate question motivated by the really otherwise — the very surprising positions that he’s taken. So dropping normal U.S. positions on things like Ukraine, Syria, election meddling, etc. and taking Russia’s side have led to these questions of why would he do that? One answer that’s come up a lot is the idea of kompromat– that’s a Russian term for compromising material. An interesting article that came out yesterday in the New Yorker, based on analysis from Keith Darden and Alena Ledeneva who’ve studied this phenomena of kompromat in Russia, makes the point that it might be that Trump believes the Russians have something on him. Whether or not they do. And if he believes they have something, that might be enough to shift his behavior. So that slightly shifts the question from do they have something to does he think they have something? And what would they have? There’s discussion of potentially this sex tape. I don’t think, given what we know already that a sex scandal is really going to be very damaging to him. But there’s mounting evidence of financial questions, let’s say, related to money laundering, related to his bankruptcies, other kinds of financial leverage that Russians might have. That could go back to the ’90s. So there could be some leverage that either Putin or associates of Putin have that would affect the Trump business empire or his family’s fortunes. So that’s a possibility, but in addition to that kind of blackmail scenario, and there’s a line between blackmail and bribery. It’s not something from the past but an active payment scheme of some sort, that’s a possibility. The third is because in other scenarios, it’s not something from the past. It’s active payment scheme of some sort. That’s another possibility. And then the third is just, relating to psychological factors, narcissism, ego. Could be that Trump promised him a gilded, giant Trump tower in the center of Moscow or something like that. So there could be other–he likes people that say nice things about him. So there’s a range of psychological factors as well I think that could possibly explain it.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Although with Vladimir Putin coming to the U.S. shortly, I’m sure we’ll be speaking with you again. Professor Herrera, thanks very much.

Yoshiko Herrera:

Thank you, you’re welcome.