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When asked about Putin, Trump says U.S. isn’t ‘so innocent’

ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump watched the Palm Beach Central High School band play during their arrival at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. >> President Donald Trump said he respects Vladimir Putin, and when told the Russian leader is “a killer,” Trump said the United States has many of them.

“What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?” he told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly in a taped interview aired today on the Super Bowl pregame show.

Trump has long expressed a wish for better ties with Moscow, praised Putin and signaled that U.S.-Russia relations could be in line for a makeover, even after U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Putin has called Trump a “very bright and talented man.”

During Putin’s years in power, a number of prominent Russian opposition figures and journalists have been killed.

In the interview, Trump says, “I do respect him,” then is asked why.

“I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him. He’s a leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world — that’s a good thing,” Trump said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. “Will I get along with him? I have no idea.”

O’Reilly then said about Putin: “But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.”

Trump responded: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”

When O’Reilly says he doesn’t know any government leaders who are killers, Trump says “take a look at what we’ve done, too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes” and references the Iraq war.

The Kremlin had no immediate comment. Democrats and Republicans took issue with Trump’s comparison of Russia and the U.S.

“I really do resent that he would say something like that,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, distanced himself from the president.

“Putin’s a former KGB agent. He’s a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election. The Russians annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine and messed around in our elections. And no, I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does,” McConnell told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

O’Reilly also asked Trump to back up his claims that some 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast in the election. Trump didn’t answer directly, but asserted that immigrants in the U.S. illegally and dead people are on the voter rolls. “It’s really a bad situation, it’s really bad,” Trump said.

There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the Nov. 8 election. Trump won the Electoral College vote but lost the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes to Clinton.

Trump recently announced on Twitter that he would call for a “major investigation” into voter fraud, but senior administration officials said last week that plans for Trump to take some type of executive action on the issue had been delayed.

Trump said in the Fox News interview that he will set up a commission to be headed by Vice President Mike Pence and “we’re going to look at it very, very carefully.”

McConnell, meanwhile, said he saw no role for the federal government because states historically have handled voter fraud investigations.

“There’s no evidence that it occurred in such a significant number that would have changed the presidential election, and I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that,” McConnell told CNN. “I think the states can take a look at this issue.”

On other issues, Trump said:

—California’s consideration of legislation to create a statewide sanctuary for people living in the country illegally is “ridiculous.” He suggested withholding federal funding as possible punishment.

—Plans to enact a replacement for the Affordable Care Act could slip into next year. “I would like to say by the end of the year, at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year,” Trump said.

—Living in the White House is “a surreal experience in a certain way, but you have to get over it, because there’s so much work to be done.”

The Trump administration on Thursday revised recent U.S. sanctions that had unintentionally prevented American companies from exporting certain consumer electronic products to Russia. The change allows companies to deal with Russia’s security service, which licenses such exports under Russian law. The products were not intended to be covered by the sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Dec. 29 after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election. The White House denied it was easing sanctions.

10 responses to “When asked about Putin, Trump says U.S. isn’t ‘so innocent’”

  1. justmyview371 says:

    H0w old is this story? I recall it being kicked around a month ago.

    • roughrider says:

      Bill O’Reilly will conduct a sit-down interview with President Donald Trump that will air during the FOX broadcast network’s Super Bowl LI pregame show on Sunday at 4:00 p.m. ET.

  2. TigerEye says:

    In defense of a former KGB agent and Russian president whom even Bill O’Reilly refers to as “a killer” the POTUS basically says, well, we’re no better.

    Terrific.

  3. skinut says:

    This bromance trump feels for putin has become a total embarrassment. You know it’s bad when even mitch mcconnell says something.

  4. klastri says:

    Anyone who watches that entire interview and concludes that Mr. Trump is sane is fooling himself or herself. Trump suggested that the United States is morally equivalent to the murderous dictatorship of Putin.

    Trump is psychotic. People who voted for him should beg for forgiveness. He is a spectacularly unfit President.

    • lwandcah says:

      This clown is the most unpresidential, unsophisticated, poorly versed, crude, demeaning, opinionated, uninformed, egotistical, self-righteous, pompous, poor excuse for a human being that has ever held a public office in this country. I guess that is the allure, and what got him elected.

  5. st1d says:

    sand creek, clear lake, wounded knee, trail of tears, my lai, waco, 55 million innocent babies.

    what part of triumph’s answer is incorrect?

    hilary’s brown shirts still insist on projecting their psychosis/neurosis onto triumph seeking to deflect their own inadequacies. sad.

    • jusris says:

      Great point st1d…Trump proved that America is not the great country that Trumpers have been saying and thanks for helping him prove that point to these non-believers…We’re morally no better than Russia??? Americans need to face facts…#MAGA

    • TigerEye says:

      “what part of triumph’s answer is incorrect?”

      I don’t know… Maybe the part where he tried to bring the US into moral equivalence with Putin to make him look good?

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