Michael McFaul: Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia on Putin, China, and the Future of Democracy

And you know, Trump seems to, I think, openly admire Putin, you know, is my read.

He's, he's made several comments to that extent.

Yeah.

Are there parallels between Putin and Trump in their autocratic approach to governing? What do you see? That was, it was sort of a, a slope for Putin.

He's become more and more autocratic.

Do you see that in Trump?

Well, there's definitely ideological affinity between the two leaders.

You know, they're illiberal nationalists.

They-- That, that, that is core, and that's been there since the first Trump term.

I write about that in the book.

I have a whole chapter on it, and that's real.

I think the core is they do have the shared ideology.

By the way, uh, this is a transnational movement, uh, this battle between illiberal nationalists and liberal democrats.

You see it in Hungary.

You see it in Italy, France, the UK.

This is not something special to them, but it's real, and it's, you know, the, the same that they both like Viktor Orbán.

That's because of this shared ideology.

That's the first thing.

In terms of, of the, the style of governance, uh, I also think, tragically in my view, President Trump admires autocrats.

He calls them strong leaders, right? So that's the euphemism, but I think he admires that.

He says it all the time.

He says, "He's a strong leader." He says about Xi Jinping.

He, he sa- he uses it oftentimes to describe autocratic leaders.

When have you ever heard him say that about a democratically elected leader? I, I, I watch him pretty closely.

I've never heard him say that about a democratically elected leader.