Washington – Asked About Putin, Trump Says US Isn’t ‘So Innocent’

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to during a meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)Washington – President Donald Trump said he respects Vladimir Putin, and when an interviewer called the Russian leader “a killer,” Trump said the United States has many of them.

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    “What do you think? Our country’s so innocent,” he told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly in an excerpt released by the network. The president’s interview was to air Sunday afternoon 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 win against 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,” and 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?”

    In the excerpt released by Fox, Trump did not cite specific U.S actions. It was not clear whether he expanded on the comment or added context later in the interview.

    The Kremlin had no immediate comment.

    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.”

    While saying he would not critique “every utterance” by Trump, McConnell said he thinks “America’s exceptional, America is different, we don’t operate in any way the way the Russians do. I think there’s a clear distinction here that all Americans understand, and no, I would not have characterized it that way.”

    “I obviously don’t see this issue the same way he does.”

    Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday denied that Trump’s comments were a false equivalency between Putin’s actions and those of US leaders, adding that Trump was trying to reset the U.S. relationship with Russia, as he promised in the campaign.

    “If we were able to work with Russia to hunt down and destroy ISIS and confront radical Islamic terrorism, that would be a good thing,” Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ”What you have in President Trump is someone who is not going to look in the rearview mirror so much as looking out the windshield.”

    The Kremlin had no immediate comment.

    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.

    Also last week, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley condemned Russia’s “aggressive actions” in eastern Ukraine and warned Moscow that U.S. sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea will remain until the peninsula is returned to Ukraine.

    But she tempered her criticism, saying it was “unfortunate” that she had to condemn Russia in her first appearance at the U.N. Security Council.

    “We do want to better our relations with Russia,” Haley said.


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    5 Comments
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    7 years ago

    Agent orange true to form.

    Buchwalter
    Buchwalter
    7 years ago

    Donald Ducky should be impeached for malfeasance and subversive activity

    hashomer
    hashomer
    7 years ago

    Obama was criticized for apologizing about America’s historical wrongs, genocide and breaking treaties with American Indians, slavery and segregaton of blacks, imprisoning Japanese citizens in WW2. But Obama always did so as a moral counterbalance to those horrific events. Now Trump expressly agrees that Russia is evil and amoral, but that America is equal in evil and worse? He says this to approve of Putin’s evil deeds, and to acclaim the new ethic: Two wrongs make a right, evil is OK, America has no moral basis so we’ll do more evil now that I’m president. Wow!

    7 years ago

    Trump was right; the U.S. Cavalry engaged in atrocities for many years against American Indians, slaughtering innocent women and children. U.S. troops have also engaged in atrocities against civilians, such the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, in 1968. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed in the Vietnam War, as well as the War in Iraq. Hence, I agree with Trump that our hands are not clean.

    Yitzi1
    Yitzi1
    7 years ago

    It sounds like the media is continuing their crusade against President Trump. This comment sounds like is out of contest.