After Trump praised Putin in a national security forum Wednesday night, the Trump campaign doubled down on its support of the dictator Thursday, suggesting the NY businessman prefers authoritarian-style leadership over a democratic one and even cited that Putin enjoys 82 percent support.
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“Trump was never told it would be shared anywhere else”, and that Trump would not have agreed to do the interview had he known it would air on RT America – an operation of government-funded news outlet Russia Today. The Trump campaign insists that it was not aware that King would air the interview during his show Politicking.
Trump’s political opponent, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, has criticized Trump for weeks for alleged relations between Trump’s associates and Russian business people. After Trump appeared on King’s podcast, King repeatedly lobbied Trump for a TV interview, he told Burnett: “I’ve said, ‘You gotta do my TV show, ‘ he said, ‘I’m working on it, I’m working on it'”. Experts inside and outside the government have pointed to Russian-backed actors as the source of the hack, which has been used to leak information in an attempt to embarrass Democrats.
To be certain, Trump’s overt praise of the Russian strongman is hardly a new tone for modern conservatives, who have for years lauded Putin in an effort to attack President Obama.
On Thursday night the campaign said Trump did the interview “as a favor to Mr. King” and believed it was for a podcast. But once we went in, Larry, we shouldn’t have gotten out the way we got out. Putin has offered kind words for Trump in the past as well.
Graham dropped out of the presidential race in December and announced in May that he wouldn’t vote for either Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
For several moments Clinton stood still, shaking her head – then returned to the podium.
“He’s been a leader far more that our president has been a leader”, Trump said of the Russian president.
Pence refused to say whether Trump would consider sending in significant ground troops to the Middle East, saying he would not “signal to the enemy” his plans. King looked stumped and said that, “We did not lose the connection”. Clinton had previously denounced his rhetoric pertaining to the Russian president as “unpatriotic” and “scary”.
Mr Trump and his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, defended the comment.
Obama slammed Donald Trump on Thursday, the day after NBC’s Commander-in-Chief forum, for what the president called “wacky ideas”, as reported by New York Daily News.
The interview came just hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan called Putin an “aggressor that does not share our interests”, adding that, “Vladimir Putin is violating the sovereignty of neighboring countries”. This caricature of Vladimir Putin was adapted from a Creative Commons licensed photo from the Russian Presidential Press and Information Office available via Wikimedia.
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He said of Putin: “Other than destroying every instrument of democracy in his own country, having opposition people killed, dismembering neighbors through military force, and being the benefactor of the butcher of Damascus, he’s a good guy”.
