Posted on 02/06/2017 2:39:43 AM PST by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
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?"
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Trump is right that there are things in the US history that we’re not so innocent. This isn’t running down the country but just being brutally honest.
There is nothing innocent about a constant state of war with deployed American sons and daughters going on for decades while returning them home either dead or maimed with no gain to show for it. Our previous leadership has tossed our own children into an expensive, generational meat grinder with no discernible results. We have not grown our territory and we have not gained new external resources as a result of these needless deaths and injuries. The only thing I see is that enemies are now popping up in our own country to make war on our women and children. Who does this serve? I would rather have a thoughtful man in charge of these decisions weighing the cost of these lives before wrecklessly discarding them.
I wish he would explain himself better at times like this.
Excellent point. To my knowledge they are still looking for those mass graves...and still haven’t found any.
Which now-abandoned camp is now a minor ecological disaster, per an article I saw here in the last few days. I’m sure we’re both unsurprised.
Well, she *is* a Democrat, I would not expect much agreement. That there is even this is notable today.
The Putin bashing is getting old. If these people want to start a nuclear war they should just say so.
I don’t get why these morons keep trying to bait Trump into bashing Putin.
Russia has Putin. The U.S. has the Clintons
Mid East Christians are a great point. We’ll go to war over muslims in serbia, but we’ll not lift a finger for Christians in the mid east.
They play their sinister little refugee game with the UN which establishes camps from which they choose prospective emigrants. They hide the fact that hristian lives are just as endangered in those muslim majority camps as in the radical group countryside. Therefore, no sane Christian will enter their camp.
The UN (and US) gets to look fair and balanced, but the real truth is in the percentage of Christians versus Muslims.
“There is a difference between killing people in war and murdering your political opponents.”
Which political opponents has Putin murdered? Name names.
bump
It’s a major disaster. It’s a flood zone. Crap from 5K+ people. 100-200 abandoned vehicles. My dad says they should bury it then call it a sacred burial grounds.
It's difficult to give in-depth explanations on Twitter, and that is Trump's tool for bypassing the lying media.
I do not see anything remarkable about his statement. After the last administration made it a central policy to destroy the Middle East and create Isis and the refugee situation, can we really take the moral high ground?
How about the dronings? At least one of them was a US citizen.
Hillary Clinton on the murder of Gaddafi.
She is clearly elated that her actions resulted directly in this murder.
Vince Foster
Ron Brown
McDougal
Etc...
I have no problem with Trump saying something like this, and I've been critical of him in the past for any number of things. He was elected because he's not a career politician, and he has every right to dump on this country's methods of conducting its affairs in the past.
Do you think it was OK for the government (under Democrats) to practically annihilate the American Indians? Do you think it was OK for the Democrats to create the KKK as the thug arm of their party?
He wasn't on Twitter. He was on Fox with Bill O'Reilly. And it wasn't a gotcha question either.
I do not see anything remarkable about his statement. After the last administration made it a central policy to destroy the Middle East and create Isis and the refugee situation, can we really take the moral high ground?
Yes.
Not to worry, while I HATE Trump has taken a beating relentlessly due to the Pravda media you are spot on correct in this account. Be mindful however there will be dozens of apologists to tell you how what you heard really wasn’t what you heard.
The cowardly Ass. Press didn’t seem to care when Obonzo was traveling all over the world, bowing down to and kissing the asses of the heads of other country’s governments and saying this.
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