
© AP Photo/Seth PerlmanRepublican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Indiana Theater Sunday, May 1, 2016, in Terre Haute, Ind.
The billionaire big-mouth US presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to be the favorite contender for the White House among ordinary Russians, according to some polls.
His appeal abroad is due to various factors. Trump's has a rakish persona whose iconoclasm can at times seem amusing. He has clearly upset the US political establishment with his politically incorrect fiery talk, including members of his own Republican party.
Trump has also said things that appear to be progressively radical. In particular, he has voiced favorable comments in the past about Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has vowed to improve foreign relations between Washington and Moscow. He also
slammed the US military alliance NATO as being obsolete.
The property magnate and former reality-TV star has therefore understandably garnered positive interest among Russian citizens. Trump may have said some obnoxious things against immigrants and Muslims, but on the other hand some of his views appear to set him refreshingly apart from conventional Washington politics, which invariably disparage Russia as a global threat.
Could The Donald come up trumps to thaw frosty relations between the US and Russia?
The trouble with Trump, who as of last week has become the Republican's presidential presumptive nominee, is that
he can't be trusted. As a former business associate said of him to the
Washington Post, Trump will saying anything if he thinks it will clinch a deal. In other words, the would-be president is a consummate self-serving player.This week has shown Trump making a series of lightning-fast U-turns and rhetorical pirouettes almost befitting the Bolshoi Ballet.
On London's newly elected mayor, Sadiq Khan, Trump
said he would make an "exception" to his proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering the US by allowing the British politician a visitor visa.
Khan won a stunning electoral victory last week when he became the first Muslim mayor of the British capital - one of the most prestigious cities of the world. The working-class son of an immigrant busman later said that he would like to visit the US to liaise with American mayors on municipal projects, but that he feared he would not be permitted entry if Trump became president in the November election to the White House, because of his "religious faith".
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