Boris Johnson: ‘Faction within Republican Party has a weird, sort of homoerotic fascination for Putin’

A former prime minister’s caterwauling about “democracy” included ascribing “weird homoerotic” opinions of Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of one American political party.

(Video Credit: Fortune Magazine)

Monday in New York City, former United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined the Fortune Global Forum 2024 to discuss an array of topics including Brexit, artificial intelligence, and trade. During the discussion with Fortune’s Geoff Colvin, the leader, who resigned in 2022 amid ethics scandals, was questioned about President-elect Donald Trump’s relationship with Putin prompting an assertion about members of the GOP.

“I think there is a sort of faction within the Republican Party that has a strange, kind of, you know, weird, sort of homoerotic fascination for Putin, I personally don’t share,” he said more than 12 minutes into the discussion. “There’s some of these people who think he’s an all-around stand-up guy, and they love his manly Christianity and all this other stuff.”

“It’s complete nonsense. He’s a tyrant, and a kleptocrat, and a murderer and a very, very dangerous and bad man,” Johnson went on without elaborating on his claims about Republicans.

During the discussion, the former leader who had previously been called out by commentator Tucker Carlson for “constantly denouncing me as a tool of the Kremlin,” also had harsh criticism for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and others he attributed with concerning rhetoric.

“There’s a lot of dangerous, poisonous, pernicious talk at the moment,” he told Colvin.

While Johnson praised Trump for actions during his first administration, as he’d done during an October interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, lauding the president for providing Javelin missiles and for expelling Russian spies, he expressed worry over the GOP leader’s plan to negotiate a peace deal within “24 hours” of his inauguration.

It was the prime minister’s opinion that such a rapid resolution risked a deal “not in the interest of freedom and democracy.”

“I’m absolutely convinced that it would be a disaster for the world if Ukraine were to go down,” he said.

“I nonetheless cling to my memory of Trump when he was in office, where actually he was pretty tough on Putin,” insisted Johnson, as he had when he shut down Tapper’s focus on claims from Bob Woodward’s book that contended the president had remained in contact with Putin since he’d left the White House.

“What I can tell our viewers is that when I had dealing with President Trump over Russia, like when the Russians poisoned people in the UK it was actually the Trump administration that really, you know over, they exceeded expectations,” he told the CNN anchor.

To Colvin, Johnson spoke in favor of Trump permitting Ukraine to hit targets within Russia in direct contrast with the president’s plan to negotiate peace, “So look, I’m just putting it out there, if anybody’s in touch with the president-elect, here is a golden opportunity to show that the previous administration has been weak because it has not given the Ukrainians provisions they need and I think that’s the first thing he should do.”

Kevin Haggerty

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