Not sure Putin has the same hold on Trump as he had 8 years ago.
I haven't followed American politics closely at the time and didn't concern myself with it. So I do not know.
The Russians more than likely do have kompromat on Trump but a video of some prostitutes pissing on him would be written off as AI, and his supporters wouldn’t bat an eyelid even if they believed it was true. Problem is that Trump admires Putin and will get manipulated by him anyway even without the threat of kompromat.
They have targeted
Trump's wife with those latest publications. Putin probably has something
on her and that something might spark a great outrage domestically in the US. It might involve other American individuals. Create a media frenzy. Derail things. Melania and Trump have a very "professional marriage," so to say. They both do things on the side, I'm sure.
What Putin appears to be doing is
slowly leaking that stuff and
thereby controlling the media narrative around Trump. And he will tailor that leakage to his interests and to how Trump reacts/responds. That's how manipulation works.
That is what people do not understand. Most people think that Putin has something on Trump and that he controls Trump like that. What Putin does is
playing with the leakage of things he knows about Trump that also many American Washington insiders know about in order to
control the media around Trump. Putin 1. Watches American news and then 2. Acts to threaten leakage or to imply something about some leakage and then 3. Watches how his actions affect American media. And if he can control American media like that then he can control Trump because Trump must constantly face that media. Putin controls CNN like that. Not Trump. I don't think Trump would give a shit about anything and everything being released. But when Putin can control CNN (etc.) then he can greatly control Trump and affect American politics.
And Putin loves the fact that he can control American politics like that. That's what gives him a great personal satisfaction. When he does that he seems, and he seems to his own self, as the true world leader bossing Americans around. To a great extent that's what he's all about. It is a self-centred, megalomanic, who's-the-big-boss type a thing. And he is using very dirty tricks and methods. And on the back of that stuff he plans Russian military expansions.
The good thing in all of this when it comes to the American side is that Trump and Melania have a very stable marriage agreement. It is clearly in both of their interests not to get a divorce. And Melania
is no violet to be greatly shaken by that stuff. (Stirred perhaps, but not shaken. lol) That's my sense of her. If something were to come out about her, many American women would actually be happy that she is
also doing something on a side and not just Trump. Trump didn't marry her for her super proper and rigid upbringing. They have some sort of a very modern marriage underpinned surely by a major prenup.
