Trump was thinking in terms of Putin’s effectiveness at strategy, in the ABSENCE of any real Western effectiveness at countering him, after Trump left.
But I don’t think Putin is a ‘genius’. I think he’s a pig and a thug, who appears to have learned a lot from Hitler.
He is a genius compared to squash brain. Trump was insulting Biden.
It is possible for someone to be both. Genius does not imply goodness. Also, genius in the context President Trump used the term re Putin does not mean high IQ. It means very clever, as in Putin seized the moment in the face of totally craven weakness throughout all the Western nations. Biden, in particular, is about as weak and useless as a national leader can be.
President Trump was not praising Putin. He was commenting on the nature of our enemy.
Hitler was extremely brilliant, Genius even. If that offends someone, they are intellectually and morally bankrupt. Hitler was also extraordinarily evil.