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Speaking at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser shortly before Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Donald Trump heaped praise on the despot. Putin was "very smart," Trump said with apparent admiration. "I mean, he's taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I'd say that's pretty smart," Trump said. "He's taking over a country, literally, a vast, vast, location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right in."

Trump's long-standing affection for Putin has hardly been the stuff of secrets. In the same speech, Trump bragged that he knows the Russian leader "very well ... almost as well as anybody in this room," suggesting that their very special relationship might have prevented war--this in spite of the evident pride that Trump took in Putin's decision to launch an invasion that will likely lead to the deaths of thousands and the potential collapse of a nascent European democracy, flawed though it may be.

But Trump's comments were arguably tame compared to those of many in the right-wing media. His suggestion that his cozy relations with Putin might have averted war was a dubious bit of magical thinking--one that ignored the many ways he either enabled Putin or undermined NATO--but at least the former president was willing to countenance the notion that peace was preferable. By contrast, on Fox News and in other corners of the right-wing media, hosts aggressively cheered Russia on, while using the invasion as a hackneyed and pathetic attempt to hype the culture war--and to continue to boost Putin as a natural ally while denigrating vulnerable democracies.

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