Trump is not among those who see that as a problem. Two weeks into his presidency and days after Kara-Murza’s second poisoning, Trump expressed his respect for Putin on Fox News. When host Bill O’Reilly reminded him that Putin was “a killer,” Trump replied: “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, you think our country’s so innocent?” The relativizing reasoning previewed Trump’s own application of the authoritarian playbook, which presents the leader’s measures against his enemies as necessary and justified.
