Hillary Clinton says Trump is ‘more devoted to Putin’ than U.S. national security and calls him a ‘willing Putin puppet’

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused President Donald Trump of putting Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of U.S. national security, reviving the “Putin puppet” charge she first made against Trump during their 2016 presidential campaign.

“Fast forward ten years, we are seeing in real time everything that I warned about,” Clinton said. She argued that Trump was “more devoted to Putin than he is to freedom, democracy and, frankly, America’s national security.”

Clinton called Trump a “willing Putin puppet” and said she believed his approach to Ukraine reflected a broader willingness to accommodate Moscow. She warned that Putin’s ambitions would not end with Ukraine and suggested Trump envisioned a world divided into spheres dominated by the U.S., Russia and China.

Clinton went further, saying she continued to believe Putin possessed compromising material on Trump, possibly including “photos” or “videos.” She offered no evidence for the allegation, and no publicly established evidence has shown that Putin holds such compromising material on Trump.

She also predicted that further releases from the Jeffrey Epstein files would shock some Trump supporters because of what they might reveal about the president. Trump has denied wrongdoing related to Epstein, and his appearance in Epstein-related records does not by itself establish criminal conduct.

Turning to domestic politics, Clinton called the Republican Party “a cult devoted to Trump and Trump’s power” and described Vice President JD Vance as a “shapeshifter” whose positions changed according to political advantage.

She also criticized Elon Musk’s extensive spending to elect Republicans and said Democratic control of Congress could expose him to investigations. Musk has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republican candidates and groups across the 2024 and 2026 election cycles.

Clinton said she opposed impeaching Trump because conviction in the Senate was unrealistic, but supported investigations that could lead to impeachment proceedings against other administration officials. She singled out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing him of politicizing and “hollowing out” the military and pursuing what she called “Christian nationalist ambitions.”