What is more revealing of a president? His extemporaneous and unguarded thoughts or his vetted, polished statements? Donald Trump, the man and his administration, must be taken whole. When it comes to America’s relationship with Russia, this is an administration devoted to sending dangerously mixed signals.
On Thursday, in a speech in Poland delivered ahead of the G20 summit, Trump cast himself as the latest in a line of American presidents who dedicated themselves to the defense of liberty. The president touted the West’s virtuous intellectual and political traditions, and he did so without any of the self-conscious apologetics that Western elites seem to think marks a man of intellect. “We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives,” the president declared. He quoted Pope John Paul II’s 1979 address to the Polish people who, when laboring under the stifling Marxist secularism, observed that the people of America and Europe “still cry out, ‘We want God.’”
Not only did Trump defend the Western world’s intellectual heritage, he championed its right to defend itself against the chief threat to its interests in Europe: Russia. Trump demanded that Moscow put a halt to “destabilizing activities” in Ukraine and end its support for “hostile regimes,” including those in Iran and Syria. He explicitly stated his intention to honor the Atlantic Alliance’s mutual defense provisions—something he has so far been reluctant to do. Moreover, Trump drew a parallel to the threats Russia poses to Europe today—and Poland specifically—and those they presented in the past under the former Soviet Union. The Soviets, he noted, “tried to destroy this nation forever by shattering its will to survive.”
The Trump administration has backed this rhetoric up with action. Earlier this week, Trump agreed to provide Warsaw with sophisticated anti-missile batteries—reaffirming a commitment made to Poland and the Czech Republic by George W. Bush. Contrary to the protestations of the Obama administration that put a halt to that agreement, the reversal of that commitment was seen both in Central Europe and Moscow as deference to the Russian claim that ABM technology was destabilizing. The Trump administration has also begun shipments of liquid natural gas to Poland, the first of which arrived last month. This reduces Europe’s compromising dependence on Russian energy imports.
These policies dovetail with the Trump administration’s refusal to reduce the burden of Obama-era sanctions on Russia until Moscow withdraws its forces from the territory it occupies in Ukraine. If the Trump administration was expected to go soft on Russia, it has not lived up to its expectations.
This Donald Trump is, however, at war with another Donald Trump—the Donald Trump who speaks from the heart and without a script. That Donald Trump is conspicuously deferential toward Moscow and well-versed on Russian interests. If President Trump is poised to defend the West against the threats it faces from traditional adversaries like those in the Kremlin, he will only say so when those words are the words on the teleprompter.
Before his speech on Thursday, Donald Trump was asked why he is so reluctant to call out Moscow for its efforts to intervene in the 2016 presidential election even though he believes those hacks of private American political institutions were Russian in origin. “I think it was Russia, and it could have been other people in other countries,” Trump said. He conceded that several of America’s intelligence agencies—the FBI, CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—concluded that the Russian government orchestrated an influence campaign, including cyber espionage operations, designed to influence the course of American political events. And while he said the history of the run-up to the Iraq War ensured that everyone should be cautious about intelligence estimates, Trump proceeded to scold his predecessor for failing to respond forcefully to Russian meddling.
In Trump’s view, Russia is responsible for an attack on American sovereignty, his predecessor “choked” when confronted with this assault, and he is prepared to ratify that choke as official American policy by declining to rectify what he regards as Obama’s mistake. Good luck squaring that circular logic.
There is a charitable line of argument that suggests Trump is averse to attacking Russia for meddling in the 2016 election because it undermines his legitimacy as president. That line does not, however, explain why the president was so observant of Russian interests and disinclined to criticize Vladimir Putin over the course of the 2016 campaign.
In the summer of last year, Trump told the New York Times that he may not respond to an attack by Russia on a NATO ally in the Baltics, such as Estonia, because those countries “aren’t paying their bills.” Never mind that Estonia was one of only five NATO allies that did meet the alliance’s defense-spending requirements. Trump endorsed Russia’s military intervention in Syria as an operation aimed at terrorist elements like ISIS, even though Russia spent most of its energies attacking U.S. supported anti-Assad rebels and neutralizing British and American covert facilities.
When confronted by the fact that Putin presides over a regime in which journalists and opposition figures have a habit of dying violent deaths, Trump replied as a candidate: “I think our country does plenty of killing.” He reprised the line as the president. “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers,” he told Fox News in February. “What, you think our country is so innocent?” As a candidate, Trump surrounded himself with figures with ties to pro-Putin elements in Moscow. That indiscretion has led to a series of congressional and Justice Department investigations into that campaign, which saps this administration of authority.
These two Donald Trumps are reconcilable, but only with the understanding that the real Donald Trump is the guy without a Teleprompter in front of him. It’s only modestly reassuring that the administration he runs does not appear to share his persuasion. Trump’s speechwriters and political appointees aren’t the president. When the crisis comes, it will be the true Donald Trump who determines the course of history.
