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.
“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.
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Trump has long expressed a wish for better ties with Moscow, praised Putin and signalled 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.”
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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.”
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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.
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“I don’t think there’s any comparison,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on ABC’s “This Week.” She added, “I really do resent that he would say something like that.”
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.”
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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 a 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.
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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.”
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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” and 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.
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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.
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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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