Opinion: A Trump-Putin axis

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Tuesday, May 30, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( [David Leonhardt] David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist For all of the illicitness surrounding President Trump and Russia, [his motives]( have never been clear. If anything, a relationship of convenience between Trump and Vladimir Putin seemed more likely than an actual alliance. The past week has increased the chances that something akin to an alliance exists. On his European trip, Trump repeatedly behaved as if he were trying to advance Putin’s interests. Meanwhile, back in Washington, we learned of [an attempted secret communication channel]( between Jared Kushner — the president’s son-in-law and [senior adviser]( — and Putin’s Russia. I recommend four quick reads for anyone trying to understand the latest dark turn in the Russia story: — Anne Applebaum, in The Washington Post, on [the deterioration of U.S.-Europe relations]( “The Russian government, which has long sought to expel the United States from the continent, is overjoyed.” — David Frum, in The Atlantic, [on the same subject](. His [Twitter feed]( is also worth reading, [including]( “Since 1945, the supreme strategic goal in Europe of the USSR and then Russia was the severing of the US-German alliance. Trump delivered.” — Josh Marshall, [in Talking Points Memo]( arguing that you should worry less about why Trump and Putin are in “a de facto alliance against ‘Europe’” and instead focus on the consequences: “The relevant issue is that they appear to be operating with common goals.” — And a [tweetstorm]( by my newsroom colleague [Max Fisher]( which starts with: “When I met with German leaders in January, they were already preparing for the possibility of breakup with the US.” On other topics: My latest column looks at the [remarkable recent developments at Princeton University](. It is the place F. Scott Fitzgerald called “the pleasantest country club in America.” It enrolled freshman classes without any black students into the 1950s. Just a few years ago, it remained one of the country’s least economically diverse colleges. It’s not anymore. Its president, Christopher Eisgruber, has overseen a sharp increase in the enrollment of low- and middle-income students. [In the column]( I talk about the lessons that Eisgruber’s campaign holds for the rest of the country. The full Opinion report from The Times follows, including Melissa Harris-Perry on the [N.A.A.C.P.’s choice between radicalism and irrelevance]( and [Ruchir Sharma on Wall Street’s Trump boom](. Editorial [When Politicians Pick Their Voters]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD The Supreme Court needs to set limits on how lawmakers draw district lines to gain partisan advantage. Op-Ed Columnist [Donald Trump: The Gateway Degenerate]( By CHARLES M. BLOW Republicans in the age of Trump have sadly moved away from morality as a viable concept. Op-Ed Columnist [The Politics of Clan: The Adventures of Jared Kushner]( By DAVID BROOKS All his life he’s served his father or father-in-law. But Kushner is ill-served now by an approach that focuses on tight and exclusive blood bonds. Op-Ed Columnist [Americans, Let’s Talk]( By ROGER COHEN The end point of hardening American fracture is violence. Op-Ed Columnist [Trump’s Energy, Low and Dirty]( By PAUL KRUGMAN Risking the planet to keep a lie alive. Op-Ed Columnist [Princeton — Yes, Princeton — Takes On the Class Divide]( By DAVID LEONHARDT A university with a long history of exclusion is enrolling more low-income students than just a few years ago. ADVERTISEMENT Op-Ed Contributor [Why There Is No ‘Trump Slump’ on Wall Street]( By RUCHIR SHARMA The market keeps going up, defying the predictions of skeptics. Maybe ideology is clouding our ideas about stocks. Op-Ed Contributor [Trump’s Giant Loophole]( By LILY BATCHELDER Republicans say their pass-through tax cut will help small businesses. But the big winners are the 1 percent. Editorial [Show HUD’s Budget Cuts the Door]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Congress needs to search for solutions to an affordable housing crisis that is pushing hundreds of thousands of families to the verge of homelessness. K. L. Ricks [Op-Ed Contributor]( [Melissa Harris-Perry: How to Save the N.A.A.C.P. From Irrelevance]( By MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY It should follow the examples of more radical groups. Op-Ed Contributors [Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: Vietnam’s Unhealed Wounds]( By KEN BURNS AND LYNN NOVICK In the 1960s, two groups of Americans, thinking they were acting patriotically, went to war with each other. Op-Ed Contributor [Why ‘Brexit’ Will Make Britain’s Mediocre Economy Worse]( By SIMON TILFORD You may have heard that the country is going to conquer world markets. Six charts show a rather different reality. Op-Ed Contributor [We All Have Pre-existing Conditions]( By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL Before Obamacare, insurers often labeled minor maladies pre-existing conditions. Republican health care bills could return us to those days. Vietnam ‘67 [Lyndon Johnson’s Living Room War]( The president believed that the networks were peddling lies and biased reporting to undermine America’s efforts in Vietnam. Contributing Op-Ed Writer [The Genocide of Brazil’s Indians]( By VANESSA BARBARA Indigenous people are being murdered while the Brazilian public remains silent. Op-Ed Contributor [Thinking the Unthinkable With North Korea]( By GRAHAM ALLISON We are watching a Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion. Op-Ed Contributor [A Doctor’s Trial in a Turkish Border Town]( By CHRISTINE MEHTA Kurdish professionals and activists have little hopes of fair trials in Turkey’s politicized judiciary. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [opinionnewsletter@nytimes.com](mailto:opinionnewsletter@nytimes.com?subject=Opinion%20Today%20Newsletter%20Feedback). ADVERTISEMENT IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | Op-Ed Columnist [11 Years Old, a Mom, and Pushed to Marry Her Rapist in Florida]( By NICHOLAS KRISTOF Thousands of minors wed each year in the United States. Many are given no choice. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT | SUNDAY REVIEW [After 54 Years, We Fell in Love. After Five Months, I Got Leukemia.]( By DELIA EPHRON I thought it was a romantic comedy. I was wrong about the comedy. Letters [We’re Forward-Looking. Or Are We?]( Readers say we’re not because we don’t seem to take certain threats seriously. SIGN UP FOR THE VIETNAM ’67 NEWSLETTER Examining America’s long war in Southeast Asia [through the course]( of a single year. FOLLOW OPINION [Facebook] [FACEBOOK]( [Twitter] [@nytopinion]( [Pinterest] [Pinterest]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »](  | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps for just $0.99. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Opinion Today newsletter. 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