Here is Donald Trump having “nothing to do with Russia”, five times

Do not fall for the idea that Donald Trump is stupid. The Republican presidential nominee may have outraged just about anyone who cares about the United States being a serious country that respects diplomatic norms, with his call for the Russians to search for Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails.

Yet breaching normal etiquette, that potential Presidents should not encourage the Russians to spy on America, may turn out be a very smart move in this craziest of years. First, Trump has everyone talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails, lax security and hacking, which helps him and interrupts and infuriates the Democrats. Second, many of the voters Trump is trying to reach don’t care about any of this stuff. From their perspective, he says crazy things, so what? The Russians spy, everyone spies. What was the Cold War? What was the Second World War? Who was Ronald Reagan anyway? Throughout his campaign, many voters have discounted his silliest comments either as reality TV jokes or a break with politics as usual.

Even so, Trump reached new heights of shamelessness when he said in his latest press conference when asked about his ties with Moscow: “I have nothing to do with Russia.” That is quite simply untrue. He’s fascinated by the place and the Trump organisation is heavily involved with Russian investors.

Here are five examples of Trump having “nothing to with Russia.”

1) April 2013, Trump took his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow. While there he was in line for a meeting with Putin, who cancelled on him but sent a gift. “Almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” said Trump proudly of the after-show party.

2) That was not Trump’s first trip to Russia. It is reported that in the 1990s he was there in the lookout for property deals, and ever since he has made efforts to build a luxury hotel there.

3) Trump’s son Donald Jnr was quoted in 2008 telling a conference about the Trump organisation’s links with Russia: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

4) Trump likes and is fascinated by strong-man Putin. Last year he said: “Putin hates us. He hates Obama. He doesn’t hate [me]… I think he’d like me. I think I’d get along great with him, if you want to know the truth.”

5) Putin is fascinated by Trump. He has called him smart.

Now, there is a perfectly respectable school of thought that says the West needs a new relationship with Russia. Hawkishness doesn’t seem to be getting the West what it wants and a string of US leaders most famously Ronald Reagan, talked to the Russians constructively.

There was a massive difference, however. Reagan’s entire outlook was rooted in the entirely correct view that the Soviet system was a monstrous creation that delivered tyranny and poverty. He never deviated form his worldview that the while for the sake of mankind there needed to be dialogue (from a position of Western strength) the Russian approach to economics, freedom and government was inherently wrong. Trump, troublingly, actually likes and admires the Putin approach.