The thing is, thought, Putin didn’t actually describe Trump as brilliant. PolitiFact explains:

Trump has been referring to comments Putin made in December 2015, when asked for his thoughts of the billionaire by an ABC reporter. “He’s a very colorful person. Talented, without any doubt, but it’s not our affair to determine our worthiness — that’s up to the United States voters. But he is absolutely the leader in the presidential race,” reads the captions on the ABC video The Russian president’s words got lost in translation in some corners of the American media. CNN BuzzFeed , the Washington Examiner , the New York Post and The Hill all quoted Putin calling Trump “brilliant and talented.”

Indeed, when Fareed Zakaria asked Putin about the “brilliant and talented” line last August, Putin made it clear that his words had been misinterpreted.

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This is not the only example of a populist leader suffering from a translation error. There was a lot of news last year about Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte cursing out President Barack Obama. But as Prashanth Parameswaran pointed out in the Diplomat, this was also not exactly accurate:

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Duterte’s advisers say he is also still frustrated that some of his other comments have similarly either been taken out of context or misreported entirely. Take for instance the first time Duterte was said to have insulted Obama by using the Philippine term “putangina” — which, though often translated as “son of a whore,” is actually a phrase commonly used in the Philippines to express frustration. Duterte was actually directing that at the reporter, not Obama himself, a point that continues to be missed even among prominent media outlets today. Even so, the way the remarks were interpreted in the United States and around the world, and the backlash Duterte faced, only increased his frustration.

One can point to other great moments in mistranslation. My Washington Post colleague Glenn Kessler fact-checked whether former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Spoiler Alert: It’s ambiguous. And of course, Trump’s complaints about the media misreporting what he says about foreign policy are legion. Even if Trump is wrong most of the time, there have been times when the serious interpretation of his words does not jibe with the literal understanding.

So here’s my question: Why is it that populist leaders seem to run into this problem while more mainstream rulers do not? Why are populists more likely to have their words taken out of context?

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My hunch is that reporters are primed to believe that populist leaders are more likely to say something outrageous. Therefore, when they say things that could be interpreted that way, well, the media will oblige. Furthermore, although populists might berate their domestic media, they are less likely to care about what the international media say. And by the time any leader realizes what has happened, the initial, albeit errant, translation is treated as gospel. Note that, if my hypothesis is true, both the media and the populists will feel satisfied that it’s the other guy’s fault.

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Conventional leaders are less likely to have this problem for two reasons. First, because their public statements are more likely to stay within the lanes of “accepted” diplomatic discourse, reporters are not primed to interpret an ambiguous statement as a provocation (and because they usually stay within those lanes, reporters can also quickly pick up on conscious changes in phrasing). Second, normal leaders will have staff that are cognizant about when words might get misinterpreted, and work to fix the problem sooner rather than later. That is a sharp contrast to the Trump White House, which is so slow in getting back to reporters that some suspect it’s an intentional tactic.

Indeed, as Max Boot and I have noted, the administration speaks with so many voices on foreign policy that it’s impossible to discern the real message. As Boot concludes:

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This dangerous dysfunction at the top — bad enough now at a time of relative peace and stability — will cause America and the world considerable grief when the administration has to deal with its first serious foreign-policy challenge. Imagine a Cuban missile crisis in which McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, and Robert F. Kennedy all pursued their own policies without any coordination, and you get an idea of the danger ahead.

I almost feel sorry for Trump, because it’s highly likely that his words will get twisted beyond their original meaning in a foreign policy crisis (unless they are simply ignored). It will nourish the grievance he holds toward the mainstream media. And yet, that misinterpretation could matter.

The key word is ‘almost,’ however. The State Department has been marginalized when it comes to public explanations of the president’s words, but that is entirely a problem of the Trump White House’s creation.