Trump's connections to Russia are a key factor in the election, according to the corporate media. However, most coverage of the issue suggests that this is less about attacking Trump and more about painting Russia as the enemy.

Credit – Salon

The mainstream media has focused extensive attention on Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia, particularly to Russian president Vladimir Putin, all the while failing to cover recent leaks exposing the corruption of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Though Donald Trump has many, many flaws, the connections between Trump and Russia have been raised by mainstream media as one of the major reasons not to vote for him. After Trump stated an interest in potentially working with Russia to defeat ISIS and that he would prefer friendly relations with the nation as opposed to the alternative, many media outlets decided what was termed Trump's "man-crush" on Putin – all because Trump did not condemn the Russian government.

CNN, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Time magazine, New York magazine and Salon all ran stories referencing this alleged "man-crush" or "bromance." In New York magazine's article, Trump said he could alienate voters by "his expressed reluctance to defend potential victims of Russian aggression" as well as Russia's "apparent interest" in Trump winning the election though both Trump and Russia's government have officially denied these claims and no direct evidence has been presented for either claim.

Credit – ABC News

A recent segment by ABC News reporter Brian Ross also revived concerns about Trump and Russia after Ross' report accused Trump of lying about having "zero" connections to Russia and that he had no investments in the country. Ross claimed in the segment that Trump had pandered to Russian business interests for years by traveling to Russia and other Eastern European countries with his children – all of whom have Eastern European heritage. Though this may be true, no Russian companies or individuals are named in the report and the only evidence shown for this claim are pictures and videos of Trump and his children in other countries. Ross interviewed Sergei Millian, a Belarus native who chairs the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, about Trump's ties to Russian businesses.

Millian said that Trump had made hundreds of million of dollars by selling Russians condos in south Florida as well as by bringing the Miss Universe pageant he owns to Moscow in 2013. Later on in the segment, Ross accused Trump of allowing an unidentified man said to be linked to the Russian mafia into the VIP section of the Moscow-hosted Miss Universe pageant. This accusation, however, did not appear in the print edition of the story and the man remains unidentified.