Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has some sort of financial influence over former President Trump.

In an interview with MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Pelosi said Putin is the “richest person in the world” and has “stiff competition” to being named the most evil person in the world.

Pelosi asked “what does he have on Donald Trump that he’d have to constantly be catering to Putin?”

Her comments came just after Trump doubled down on his criticism of NATO and said he would encourage Russia to attack U.S. allies who fail to reach the alliance’s defense spending goals. Trump has also declined to criticize Putin for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison last week.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Any staunch political operative saying anything at all about their opponent should be treated like nothing at all had been said, much less as news.

    I mean, this statement would carry more weight from someone who wasn’t the in Leadership for 30 years thanks entirely do to her prodigious fundraising abilities. For Nancy Pelosi, a woman who coordinated $37M from disgraced cryptocurrency con-artist Sam Bankman Fried in exchange for carte blanche legislative authorship, to complain about someone being financially influenced…

    It isn’t that she’s wrong, its that - from Ted Cruz to Adam Schiff - getting fat stacks for your campaign / private business / family in exchange for influence over public policy is totally normal. Democrats are orders of magnitude more terrified of AIPAC than any MAGA Republican is of a Russian influence peddling campaign. And they’re all bent over and cheeks spread to JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and the rest of the mega-banks.

    The only thing that makes this news is the national understanding that getting kickbacks from a billionaire psychopath in Saudi Arabia or Korea is cool and good but getting them from a National Enemy like Putin is unacceptable.