I've said this plenty of times. Putin simply knows how to pull Trump's strings. Putin has been learning how to manipulate Trump since the late 70s. Trump neither knows nor cares how Putin is manipulating him, because it works to Trump's advantage. So long as that is true he won't resist it.
To be clear. Intelligence agencies document potentially prominent people who can be manipulated in this manner, and dispatch teams of handlers to manipulate said people. Decisions on level of discretion from the target and their compatriots is based on situations.
These people fall under the broad class of "assets." Not all assets know they are assets. Others don't care that they are assets. I suspect Trump is the later, and it is known for certain that he was at least appraised by Russia for use as a manipulated asset.
Not only that, said appraisal found him to have very high potential for said manipulations.
However, this information was intercepted and leaked. It is very possible that the entire classified documentation on how to manipulate Trump fell into the hands of far-right powers in the US, including Heritage Foundation as well as Elon and his PayPal Mafia.
I would also place suspected holders of said information as follows given observations of political events: Roger Stone and his Nixon Alumni Neo-Cons Steve Bannon and his Anti-Immigration populists Richard Spencer and his Neo-Nazis Possibly even Davey Duke and his Old-School KKK racists.