Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Trump Would Be Pals With Putin. Trump's Guy, Not So Much.

Top national security adviser doesn't share his admiration for Putin.

March 4, 2016 at 7:46 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Team of rivals.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images

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It's become almost pointless to reproach Donald Trump for inconsistency. But the Republican presidential front-runner should be aware that he cannot both take on Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama as his top national security adviser and claim to be pals with President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Trump has laid down his line on Putin multiple times. The candidate has said he would "get along" with the Russian leader, whose depredations in Ukraine are largely a European problem. Russia should be allowed to help President Bashar al-Assad fight the Islamic State in Syria ("Let Syria and ISIS fight. Why do we care?")