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David Corn sees power, not grand strategy, in Trump's Putin affinity

Jon Stewart tests the idea of a world divided among strongmen, while the author of How Russia Won offers a more personal explanation.

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The Daily Show Story of October 26, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? 1,199,105 views so far, and here is what is inside it.

David Corn - Trump’s Man Crush on Putin & “How Russia Won” | The Daily Show

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0:39Corn traces Trump's repeated desire for friendship with Putin back to the Moscow Miss Universe contest.
3:00Corn argues that Trump sees the Ukraine war as an obstacle to closer ties with Putin.
5:30Stewart asks whether Trump envisions the United States, Russia and China dividing global power among themselves.
12:00A Peaky Blinders comparison frames their discussion of force and authoritarian power.
16:11Corn interprets a proposed Trump-Putin-Xi summit without Ukraine as an alliance organized around power.
18:46Stewart urges voters not to re-elect congressional Republicans who enable Trump's posture toward Russia.

Jon Stewart offers David Corn a geopolitical theory: perhaps Donald Trump imagines the United States, Russia and China dividing the world among themselves. Corn's answer is less elaborate. He argues that Trump's attraction to Vladimir Putin begins with the combination of wealth and unchecked authority he sees in the Russian leader.

That distinction gives their Daily Show interview its central question: is Trump's posture toward Russia a strategy, or an expression of what he admires?

Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, joins Stewart to discuss his book How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America. He traces Trump's expressed desire for friendship with Putin back to the Miss Universe contest in Moscow, arguing that Trump treats the war in Ukraine as an obstacle to the relationship he wants.

Stewart keeps testing that explanation against broader ideas about power. His comparison to the brutal hierarchy of Peaky Blinders brings the conversation to a principle Corn states plainly: "Literally, might makes right." Their argument is that powerful countries treating smaller ones as possessions leaves little room for Ukrainian sovereignty.

The interview has reached about 1.2 million views, but its substance is the exchange rather than an unusual viewing surge. Near the end, Corn discusses a proposed meeting of Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping without Ukraine, which he presents as another expression of an alliance built around power. Stewart closes by turning that critique toward congressional Republicans, urging voters not to re-elect those who enable Trump's Russia posture.

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