This is overly reductive. My argument is that, while their geoplilitical intrests are difrent, the idea of jumping to Putin said he likes Biden so he must like Trump, over Putin said he likes Biden, so what about the situation would make him prefer Biden, or at least have the Biden administration think he likes them more.

This feels like we are jumping the layers of political insight and reasoning to a predetermined outcome that we prefer more. My point is that if another difrent foring leader where to speak on this, we would be giving them the benifit of the doubt and depending on our thoughts on the leader of the nation or the nation deciding if its just an endorsement or what the true motivations are, however because the Russian Federation is one of the boogiemen, we just assume everything said is a lie, I feel like this is disingenuous, and I feel it steps some hard, but interesting questions. We do not have to think he is being completly honest with us, because he likely is not, however thinking he is saying the exact oposit of what he means is utterly laughable at its face.