When given a variety of possible explanations for something happening, usually the most simple and direct answer is the correct one. And there's one huge, simple, straightforward explanation for Donald Trump's perpetual unwillingness to even hint at a direct criticism of Putin. And it's not the pee-pee tapes.
Here's how and why.
We all know that Trump is both a terrible negotiator and a terrible businessman. Dozens of his companies have gone down in flames, thousands of small businesses and workers have been screwed out of money he owed them, and his bankruptcies are legendary.
If the American people didn't seem to think this was a big deal, the American banks sure did. After Trump's last bankruptcy, so far as press reports indicate, he could no longer borrow money at reasonable rates here in the U.S., and a real estate developer who can't borrow money is rapidly out of business.
So Trump, as his son Eric tells it, turned away from U.S. banks and went to a number of Russian billionaires for his money. In 2014, when asked directly how he could have acquired $100 million in cash for new golf course acquisitions, Eric Trump famously said, "Well, we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia."
So, if President Putin were to order his own billionaires to get their money back out of Trump's properties and refuse to give him any more, Trump could well end up broke.
Really broke.
As in, losing all his properties, from Mar-a-Lago to Trump Tower.
It could wipe out all of his remaining businesses.
His kids would have to get real jobs, and no more big-game safaris.
His wife might leave him, and take their son.
He could end up living in a cardboard box on skid row.
If he's seeing that collection of pictures in his head when he looks at Vladimir Putin, it would go a long way to explain his prayerful body posture and cringeworthy sycophancy.
This also would explain why Trump has been so unwilling to release his tax returns, even after he won the election.
As David Cay Johnston has pointed out on multiple occasions, Trump is almost certainly nowhere near as rich as he brags that he is, and has a long history of connections with shady/mafia characters to get the money he needs.
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