“The man has very strong control over a country”, Trump said. Vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine has said that Trump’s pro-Putin rhetoric reflects an “irrational hostility” toward Obama. “Certainly in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been”. Trump’s warm words about Putin have troubled some of his fellow Republicans who see the Russian leader as a threat to American allies in Europe.
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The crucial question here is actually to know whether Russian Federation could be using data gathered through “routine cyberespionage” with a view to influencing the U.S. presidential election. “We hope that with the completion of the election campaigns we will see such political will towards straightening up good relations between the states”.
Both Republican and Democratic foreign policy elders have expressed shock at Trump’s praise of Putin even as USA intelligence officials have said they believe Moscow is using cyberattacks to undermine America’s electoral system, after a recent spate of Russian-linked hackings targeting Democratic Party organizations and elections infrastructure.
A flood of Republican national security experts have instead chosen to back Clinton, helping bolster her case that Trump is broadly unacceptable.
During Wednesday’s forum, NBC’s Matt Lauer challenged Trump over his admiration for Putin.
When King asked about reports that US intelligence agencies are investigating whether Russian Federation is trying to disrupt the election, Trump said that he’s skeptical.
Trump said if Putin “says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him”.
Trump has been criticized frequently for seeming to heap praise on Putin and other strongmen.
Trump also flirted with revealing what he had been learning in classified intelligence briefings given to him by US officials because he is the Republican nominee.
Private cybersecurity analysts have blamed Russian intelligence agencies for electronic break-ins into Democratic Party computers, including a breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ campaign arm.
But he was also harshly critical of the military, saying America’s generals have been “reduced to rubble” under Obama.
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Beyond so-called Trump’s admiration for Putin, the IC is in fact mostly focusing its efforts on investigating more serious cases like Russian hackers allegedly breaking into Arizona and IL state elections databases in early August 2016.
