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DON'T MISS OUT.Trump and Putin: Together at Last\nBy David Corn\u00a0 October 17, 2026President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, in August 2025. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP\nYou're reading a free promotional version of Our Land, and we hope you enjoy David's exclusive writing and don't want to miss out on what's next. Sign up to start receiving a free 30-day trial of Our Land and enjoy all of the behind-the-scenes reports and interactive features with each issue. \n\nDonald Trump has finally gotten what he has desired for years: a deal with Vladimir Putin.\nThe arrangement he reached with the Russian dictator\u2014the United States will temporarily put aside sanctions on Russian-exported diesel fuel and Russia will supply millions of tons of diesel to the global market\u2014has widely been dismissed by oil industry experts. The amount of diesel involved is a mere drop in the worldwide bucket, and its sale is unlikely to do much to lower the price of diesel in the United States, which is a net exporter of diesel. Trump\u2019s idiotic war in Iran remains the main cause of higher oil prices.\nBut this agreement is tremendously significant, for it marks the culmination of both Trump\u2019s decade-long effort to embrace Putin and Moscow\u2019s decades-long effort (or operation) to cultivate Trump as an ally and useful idiot. Moreover, it has brought about a moment that was inevitable: Trump fully siding with the Russian tyrant and taking steps to betray Ukraine, a democratic ally.\nThe president of the United States has now bear-hugged an autocrat and accused war criminal who has been assisting Iran\u2019s efforts to kill American service members and who for the past 10 years has been waging his own shadow war of disinformation and influence operations and cyberattacks against the United States and the West. Trump is helping this foe collect more oil revenue, and, at the same time, he\u2019s denigrating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pressuring him to surrender to Putin. Trump is providing aid and comfort to the enemy.\nThis is no shocker.\nSince the late 1980s, Trump has sought to strike a deal in the Soviet Union or Russia, as Russian money flowed into assorted projects of the Trump Organization in the United States and elsewhere. Soviet and Russian officials dangled the possibility of joint ventures before Trump in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, yet nothing materialized. Then in 2013, Trump held the Miss Universe contest in Moscow. He netted about $2 million from the venture, while his partner\u2014an oligarch close to Putin who underwrote the pageant\u2014lost about $10 million. Essentially, this was a transfer of wealth from one of Putin\u2019s plutocrats to Trump. More important, when Trump announced the contest would be held in the Russian capital, he asked if Putin, a repressive thug, would become his \u201cnew best friend.\u201d From that point on, Trump repeatedly signaled he yearned to be a Putin BFF.\n\nFollowing the Miss Universe contest, Trump once again tried to score a big development project in Moscow\u2014but Putin\u2019s illegal annexation of Crimea got in the way of that endeavor. Yet that did not stop Trump. While campaigning for president in 2015 and 2016, as he spoke positively of Putin, he secretly pursued a massive Moscow Trump Tower project, negotiating with Russian businessmen with suspected ties to Russian intelligence. He never bothered to tell voters about this side gig that ultimately did not come to pass. He even claimed he had nothing to do with Russia. A lie.\n\nAs a presidential candidate and then as chief executive of the United States, Trump aided and abetted Putin\u2019s covert assault on the 2016 election\u2014which was mounted by Putin in part to help Trump win the White House\u2014by ceaselessly and loudly echoing Putin\u2019s denials. With his constant braying that the Trump-Russia scandal was a \u201choax\u201d and \u201cwitch hunt\u201d orchestrated by the Deep State, the Democrats, and the media, Trump has provided cover for a foreign adversary that has attacked American democracy repeatedly.\n\nDuring his first stint as president, Trump defied his advisers and strove to be supportive of Putin, such as when he urged the G-7 nations that had kicked Putin out of the G-8 following his seizure of Crimea to welcome the Russian back. Or when he tried to muscle Zelenskyy to open an investigation to whip up evidence proving the bonkers conspiracy theory that Ukraine had somehow orchestrated the Russia scandal. He told aides that he had learned of this plot from Putin. That move to absolve Putin\u2014twinned with his effort to force Ukraine to manufacture evidence of corruption related to Joe Biden\u2014led to Trump\u2019s first impeachment.\nIn 2020, Trump even helped spread derogatory disinformation about Biden that, according to his own administration, had been cooked up by a Russian intelligence operation. The president of the United States assisted Putin\u2019s assaults on American elections.\nFor at least 13 years, Trump has displayed a deep and bizarre affinity for Putin, as I chronicle in my latest book, How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America. During his first term in the White House, this was a source of profound puzzlement for Trump\u2019s top national security aides. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats wondered whether the Russians had something on Trump. There has been widespread speculation on this possibility. My take (in brief): The Russians might indeed possess compromising material on Trump\u2014though not a \u201cpee tape\u201d\u2014but Moscow has not had to use any of it. Trump has not been coerced into his man-crush on Putin.\nFiona Hill, who handled the Russian portfolio at the National Security Council at that time, concluded that when Trump gazed at Putin he saw an incredibly wealthy autocrat who possessed total authority, and he longed to emulate all of that. Trump has repeatedly displayed his affection for dictatorial rulers. But amid his stanning for other tyrants\u2014Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi\u2014his mooning over Putin stands out.\nDuring his first administration, as has been widely noted, Trump was surrounded by advisers who constructed various guardrails. Consequently, he was not free to forge the bond with Putin that he wished for. The second time around, he\u2019s not encumbered in this fashion. It was only a matter of time before he would\u2014after all those years\u2014make real his love for Putin.\nFrom the start of Trump 2.0, it was obvious that the president viewed the Ukraine war mainly as a nuisance that blocked the path to a beautiful relationship between him and Putin. He doesn\u2019t care about Ukrainian democracy. (He doesn\u2019t care about American democracy.) He doesn\u2019t care about the violation of international laws and norms\u2014or the preservation of a rules-based international order. He wants to dominate what he perceives as an American sphere of influence, as Putin seeks to do in his neck of the woods. What animates him is the possibility of concocting deals and running the world with Putin (with Xi as a third wheel).\n\nBut poor Trump was stuck with a status quo in which the United States was expected to maintain its commitments to Ukraine, which included the provision of armaments and intelligence. Trump couldn\u2019t quite toss Zelenskyy and Ukraine overboard. But he repeatedly conveyed the message that he was just not into them. He periodically dressed down Zelenskyy and blamed him for the war. He and his not-ready-for-prime-time negotiators\u2014Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner\u2014kept leaning on Zelenskyy to cut a deal. That meant ceding territory to Putin, even land that Ukraine still controls. That is, reward the fascist aggressor.\n\nWhich brings us to recent days. In sync with the diesel deal, Trump has been squeezing Zelenskyy. He said the Ukrainian was responsible for the war. He called on Zelenskyy to leave office. He decried him as a \u201cdictator.\u201d He claimed that Zelenskyy had swindled $350 billion in military assistance out of the United States and falsely stated half of those funds were \u201cmissing.\u201d He falsely maintained the United States has provided more funding to Ukraine than Europe has. He suggested Zelenskyy wants to continue the war to \u201ckeep the \u2018gravy train\u2019 going.\u201d\n\nThere has been more than just gum-flapping. The Trump administration apparently paused the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine\u2014which the Ukrainians desperately need to defend against Russia\u2019s missile attacks. Ukraine charged that Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX imposed new limits on the military-grade Starlink terminals used by Ukrainian forces and, thus, impeded Kyiv\u2019s ability to conduct drone attacks and intercept Russian drones. (Musk says the Pentagon and the White House controlled this; the service was eventually restored.) Trump angrily demanded that Ukraine cease its attacks on Russian oil facilities. (After refraining from such strikes for three days, Zelenskyy defied Trump and said Ukraine would resume these attacks.) Trump proclaimed an \u201cenergy ceasefire,\u201d which Putin ignored, and Trump did not press Russia to end its assault on Ukraine\u2019s power grid.\n\nThe Trump administration also requested that European countries unfreeze Russian assets impounded after Putin\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and transfer them to an entity that would be overseen by the US government. So Trump could control those funds? What a nice gift it would be to return them to Putin. (The Europeans told Trump to get lost.)\nTrump\u2019s argument for the diesel deal is absurd. He and his lieutenants once contended\u2014as a bargaining chip for Russia\u2014that if the war in Ukraine was resolved, an array of opportunities for US-Russian business deals would arise, which is what the Trumpers have cared about the most. Now they say that reaching a business agreement with Putin before any resolution of this horrific conflict will create a path to peace. Their ridiculous position is to hand Putin the carrot first and then see what happens.\nTrump has never held Putin responsible for the war. He has repeatedly said that Putin wishes for the war to end, and he asserts the Russian is pursuing peace. This is more than appeasement. Trump has been running a disinformation campaign on Putin\u2019s behalf\u2014while haranguing Zelenskyy as the impediment to peace and now urging his defenestration. With these latest actions, Trump is making it easier for his pal Putin to triumph in Ukraine.Commentators on Russian state-controlled media get it, and they are hailing Trump. \u201cWell done, Trump,\u201d one of Putin\u2019s pundits proclaimed. \u201cToday he\u2019s on our side!\u201d Though Trump is an erratic fellow capable of changing course, that appears to be an accurate characterization. He\u2019s with Putin.\nAsked about Trump taking his relationship with Putin to the next level, Zelenskyy did not hold back: \u201cHe speaks about it, openly and loudly, that he loves such people, and he respects such people.\u201d Fact-check: True. \u00a0Zelenskyy added, \u201cHow can Trump be friends with him? I think that it\u2019s a mistake.\u201d\n\n\nTrump\u2019s craving to stride the world side by side with Putin has been evident for many years. But Putin\u2019s criminality and barbarity were obstacles. Now Trump has decided to move past that. Vlad is his man. Abandoning Ukraine is not a bothersome price for Trump to pay. He and Putin have been like lovers kept apart for too long. With just over two years left in his reign of madness and facing a likely drubbing in the midterms, Trump has resolved to make his dream a reality. They can be together. That was always the plan. That was always the destiny.\nTrump has gotten what he wanted. So, too, has Putin.By the way, I could use some help with sales for How Russia Won. If you haven\u2019t gotten a copy yet\u2014and want to be part of the effort to spread the truth about Trump and Russia\u2014please do so now.\n\u00a0\nStress Test: The Latest Midterms Madness\nHere\u2019s the most recent episode of the new Stress Test podcast that I am cohosting with award-winning video producer Garrison Hayes. Please check it out and subscribe at youtube.com/motherjones or wherever you get your podcasts.\n\u00a0\nDumbass Comment of the Week\nHey, the judges say, don\u2019t mess with the Boss. Fox host Laura Ingraham teed off on Bruce Springsteen, whining about his passionate support of progressive values: \u201cI was a huge Springsteen fan. But I can\u2019t\u2014he\u2019s ruined it for me. He\u2019s just ruined it\u2026If you\u2019re for the working man\u2014he\u2019s supposed to be for the working man\u2014you gotta be for Trump.\u201d\nIt\u2019s rather late to be complaining about Springsteen\u2019s politics. He\u2019s been a champion of progressive causes for decades. As for the working man? Per The Real Economy Blog: \u201cSeptember represents the sixth consecutive month of declining real wages that provides a vivid example of the cost-of-living crisis that is affecting most American households.\u201d By the way, Springsteen has been releasing in segments a film of the last show of his recent tour, during which he regularly denounced Trump and his assault on democracy and the rule of law. The third of four installments came out this week.\n\u00a0If this were the Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud contest, Trump would run away with the trophy with this observation: \u201cIt's amazing. When you stand up here, it\u2019s just like the love. I could say the stupidest things and you\u2019d clap.\u201dIt\u2019s not quite the compliment he thinks it is.\nOn Monday, The New York Times began a story on Trump\u2019s diesel deal with Putin this way.\n\nPeace envoys? Really, New York Times?\nRep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, had the most absurd duck-the-question response. While interviewing Emmer on ABC\u2019s This Week, host Jon Karl noted that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had opposed livestreaming the coming execution of Nidal Hasan, the convicted Fort Hood shooter, and he asked, \u201cAre you in favor of that idea?\u201d Emmer replied, \u201cWell, personally, I\u2019m not in favor of the death penalty\u2026I am so happy we have a president\u2026who will make a decision\u2026in the best interest of the people. He will hold the criminals and terrorists accountable.\u201d\n\nA Republican opposed to the death penalty could not even bring himself to criticize Trump for endorsing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s decision to broadcast this execution live. Days later, Trump himself flipped and killed the idea. Apparently, he had not realized that Hasan is paralyzed and requires a wheelchair, and he reasonably fretted the optics would not be great.\nOn Fox News, host Rachel Campos-Duffy (who\u2019s married to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy) cheered on Trump\u2019s latest moves regarding the war in Ukraine and claimed Ukraine has killed \u201ca million kids on the Russian side.\u201d\nThis was ridiculously wrong. Her remark immediately drew a comment on X: \u201cNo evidence supports Ukraine killing \u2018a million kids\u2019 on the Russian side. UN OHCHR verified ~820 child deaths in Ukraine since 2022 (mostly Russian attacks). Russian officials report hundreds of Russian child casualties.\u201d Once upon a time, it mattered if a television host made such a dopey remark. Now, not at all.\nThis week\u2014given the Trump mercy rule\u2014the winner was obvious: Trump\u2019s chief suck-up. While speaking at a rally on Tuesday in Tyler, Texas, for GOP Senate candidate, Ken Paxton, Vice President JD Vance responded to a fan: \u201cI love you too, sir. In a totally platonic way, to be clear. I'm the vice president, not James Talarico,\u201d Paxton\u2019s Democratic opponent.\n\n\nHas there ever been such a snotty veep? This is Vance acting like a 13-year-old brat who thinks it\u2019s funny to call someone gay. For such juvenile behavior, Vance places first this week. We hope his wife is proud.\n\nThere was much mail about the issue in which I explained how NPR and The New York Times, to a lesser extent, recently whitewashed the bigotry, conspiracism, extremism, and nuttery of Tucker Carlson.Steve Pelton wrote:\nExcellent piece, David. I am very disappointed in NPR. They act as if they are still beholden to taxpayers for some funding and are still afraid to upset Trump. NPR has been guilty of normalizing Trump throughout this Trump obscenity. Now may I suggest you expose Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) for his complicity in Trump's ruining of our country. As Senate majority leader he has the power to push back, but never has, no matter how outrageous the topic. His WWII war hero dad must be spinning.\nThanks, Steve. Thune, like Mitch McConnell, has a lot to answer for. Then again, no Republican senator has bolted the party and truly rejected Trump and Trumpism. They\u2019re all complicit.Gregg Barak asked:So was Carlson\u2019s support for Abdul El-Sayed rather than Mike Rogers a diversion of some kind?\nNo, I think he probably means it\u2014in the sense he means anything. He's become fiercely anti-Israel and on that point is on El-Sayed's side. But he has not formally endorsed El-Sayed. Mostly, Carlson\u2019s been slamming Rogers for supporting the war in Iran and the Israeli government, and he defended El-Sayed when Rogers\u2019 blasted him for comments critical of the post-9/11 wars. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.Carole Ranco wondered this:\nWhy would NPR compliment Tucker Carlson? I\u2019m really disappointed. Are they turning right? They\u2019ve been so good at being neutral and sticking to facts.I don't think NPR is moving right. But NPR has long been afraid of being accused of being too liberal. Thus, it often bends over backward to be fair to the right. And in this case, it went too far by calling Tucker Carlson a \u201cthoughtful\u201d fellow.\nPooky Amsterdam shared this:Your recent post on Tucker Carlson is informative. He is in my opinion running for the Republican nomination for president. I don't think he will be able to pull off a new third party soon enough. And when are we having our next live OurLanders Zoom?\nHey Pooky, thanks for writing. I've been busy promoting the book and starting the new Stress Test podcast. But we'll have a Zoom get-together soon. As for Carlson, I don't think he has the guts to run.\u201cWhy do I have to wear this?\u201d\u201cTo monitor your heart, Moxie. To see if it\u2019s working well.\u201d\n\u201cYou mean it may not be working well? What happens then? What happens if your heart stops working?\u201d\u201cYours will never stop.\u201d\n\nCongratulations, you read all the way to the end! It's a great time to say \"I'm in\" and start your free 30-day trial. Make sure you don't miss out on what's next: Sign up to start getting Our Land in your inbox each week. We also want to hear from readers (especially those who read the whole thing!). So let us know what you think so far or share something interesting with David at ourland.corn@gmail.com." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1792282516.000278", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-18T01:17:09.219758+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://link.motherjones.com/public/47970500" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-18T01:17:09.210484+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "link.motherjones.com/public/47970500", "pwd": "/data/archive/1792282516.000278", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-18T01:17:09.183182+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://link.motherjones.com/public/47970500" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-10-18T01:17:09.173180+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "link.motherjones.com/public/47970500.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1792282516.000278", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-18T01:17:05.280462+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "link.motherjones.com/public/47970500", "warc": null, "wget": "link.motherjones.com/public/47970500.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1792282516.000278", "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-18T01:17:11.850500+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-18T01:17:04.238471+00:00", "path": "/public/47970500", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "597808a1-6d1a-46b9-b589-52bcf0ee0553", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1792282515-import.txt" ], "tags": ",drudge,war-wiki,pool", "tags_str": "drudge,war-wiki,pool", "timestamp": "1792282516.000278", "title": "link.motherjones.com/public/47970500", "updated": "2026-10-18T01:17:04.238283+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-10-18 01:17", "url": "https://link.motherjones.com/public/47970500" }