Josh Marshall thinks the following: “Putin wants a fragmented Europe; Trump does too.”

Marshall bases that on Trump’s behavior today at the NATO meeting, as well as his and his team’s behavior at a meeting of NATO/EU leaders where he berated the Germans for selling too many cars in the United States. (Use Google Translate.) Apparently he isn’t aware of just how many BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes and Volkswagens are assembled in this country.

To Trump, everything is transactional. There’s no policy, there’s simply “I want that, you want this, let’s do a deal.” He and his team don’t even seem to know who they’re trying to do deals with in Europe: “Apparently, it was unclear to the guests that the EU countries concluded trade agreements only jointly.”

I’m really beginning to wonder whether Trump’s obvious liking of Russian and Putin is something more than just admiration for a strongman. Maybe these investigations really will turn up some sort of unspoken and unholy alliance. That would explain why Trump continues to try to discredit them at every opportunity, and why he continues to try to figuratively bill NATO countries for what he seems to think of as dues for their membership in the club.