Mutual Admiration?

Probably one-way and manipulation on the other side.

What is Putin thinking? "Oh, you marvelous sucker, you." ??

It is a blossoming bromance. In what one US-based critic called a “first Tinder date”, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin talked for two and a quarter hours on Friday instead of their scheduled 30 minutes.

[...]

“I think there was just such a level of engagement and exchange, and neither one of them wanted to stop,” US secretary of State Rex Tillerson said afterwards. “Several times I had to remind the president, and people were sticking their heads in the door. And they sent in the first lady at one point to see if she could get us out of there, and that didn’t work either.”

There were sighs of relief in Washington that Trump, an erratic and volatile president with little foreign policy experience, had avoided a major gaffe.

  Guardian

How do we know? There were only Trump and Tillerson there to tell us what happened.

Trump and Tillerson were not accompanied by national security adviser HR McMaster or Trump’s senior Russia adviser Fiona Hill. “That was an interesting omission given that Fiona Hill is the Russia expert on the National Security Council.”

[...]

Thomas Countryman, former US acting undersecretary for arms control and international security, commented: “It’s an indication of how rapidly our standards are falling when we’re reasonably pleased that President Trump has not made an obvious error.”

That, too.

Sean Guillory, a blogger and podcaster on Russia, said: “The whole thing is theatre for domestic consumption.”

Bingo. In both countries.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.