5 Feb 2023 11:04 am
I think Hillary Clinton was expecting a passing of the crown and ran her election on that premise. Even Donald Trump was surprised he won. The post mortem does include the Russians and Cambridge Analytica. It's undeniable that Putin had a strong dislike for Putin as Hillary did for him. Remember when she misspelled "reset" when meeting with Lavrov? I think there was bad blood, not specifically a mens rea of Trump that contributed to that. To say "it was the Russians" is probably oversimplifying.
Nothing is easier than defending the status quo.