Donald Trump said Sunday that he knows of no evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin has killed journalists.
“I don’t know that he has. Have you been able to prove that? Do you know the names of the reporters he’s killed? Because I haven’t seen the names,” Trump said to host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”
Trump was pressed on Putin’s potential involvement in the deaths of Russian journalists due to his embrace of an endorsement of sorts from Putin last week. Trump also supports Russian action in Syria.
“I think that would be despicable if that took place,” Trump said. “But I haven’t seen evidence that shows he killed anybody in terms of reporters.”
“Yeah, sure, there have been allegations, but nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody,” Trump said. “He’s always denied it. It’s never been proven. You’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country.”
Trump also pivoted into a criticism of Hillary Clinton.
“I think Hillary when she was secretary of state made some horrible, horrible decisions, and thousands, and thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people have been killed,” Trump said.
“Take a look at what we’re doing in the Middle East. We went into Iraq, we shouldn’t have,” Trump continued later.
