WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has brushed off a description of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as a “killer,” saying, “What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”
In an interview with Fox News to be broadcast on Sunday, interviewer Bill O’Reilly asked Trump if he respected Putin, whom he has praised in the past.
“I do respect him, but I respect a lot of people,” Trump replied in excerpts released on Saturday. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him.”
He continued, “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.”
“But he (Putin) is a killer though,” O’Reilly interjected.
“There are a lot of killers,” Trump responded, “We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think our country’s so innocent?”
The clip is cut off before he can elaborate further.
Bret Stephens, the Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor, was among those conservatives immediately critical of the president’s remarks, tweeting that “Trump puts US on moral par with Putin’s Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this.”
In a separate segment, O’Reilly also asked Trump about the claims of voter fraud he has made without providing evidence to back them up, such as suggesting that millions of people voted in the November election illegally.
“Many people have come out and said I’m right,” Trump replied.
When pressed about actual data, Trump dodged the question, saying “When you see illegals, people that are not citizens and they are on the registration rolls … we can be babies but you take a look at the registration, you have illegals, you have dead people … it’s a really bad situation.”
Watch Bill O’Reilly’s interview w/ Pres. @realDonaldTrump Sunday at 4p ET during the #SuperBowl pregame show on FOX. https://t.co/h6qG375hkH pic.twitter.com/4wZ01jYp1e
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 5, 2017
— Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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