General Discussion

Imagine if you were in that position: an evil dictator had blackmail material on you. If anything I think that would incentivize finding a covert way to give Ukraine lots of money and resources to destroy Putin as fast as possible so the blackmail material goes way. Of course Trump isn't exactly known to be a thinker so it's not surprise he hasn't thought about doing this.

I do think there's more to it though, at some level Trump admires people like Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. He wants that level of control that those evil dictators have.