Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has taken to Russian TV to not only criticise the foreign policies of Barack Obama but also of his predecessor, Republican president George Bush. He also recently told NBC of Putin in a separate conversation, “I’ve already said he is really very much a leader”. “Now it’s a very different system, and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader”.
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In July, Trump said he “would be looking at” the possibility of lifting sanctions against Russian Federation tied to its illegal annexation of Crimea – which the US government refuses to recognize.
The interview with King is the latest in an odd series of moves from the Trump campaign, which hasn’t tried to distance itself from the Russian leader.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Putin said that he was prepared to work with either Trump or Clinton. Miller later said Trump wouldn’t have agreed to do the interview had he known it would be aired on RT.
Speaking to Larry King on Russia Today about the war in Iraq, Trump said: “It’s a war we shouldn’t have been in, number one”.
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. “I just say this way, wouldn’t it be great if the United States and Russian Federation got along, combined, knocked out ISIS, maybe did other positive things?” He said Putin “has done so in many ways, in a very ruthless manner”.
“I don’t know”, he said. “And it’s a war that, when we got out, we got out the wrong way”.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who is still endorsing Trump, distanced himself from his party’s nominee on the issue, calling Putin “an aggressor” against US interests.
Ryan was asked five times about Trump but he repeatedly said he would not comment on the the back-and-forth of the presidential race.
Putin has denied any involvement in the cyber attacks.
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