Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth puts the question everyone is hinting out boldly into words:
Trump is certainly acting like a Russian asset, out there colluding on international airwaves when he takes Vladimir Putin’s side when asked: who do you believe, your intelligence community or Putin?
That’s putting a finer point on it than Democratic leadership have yet articulated when they ask rhetorically “what has Putin got on Trump.” It’s gone beyond whether or not Trump is being blackmailed by Putin, that is increasingly obvious. It’s now a question of whether he is explicitly working for the Russian autocrat.