President Trump said he doesn’t know Russian President Vladimir Putin and complained that concerns about his relationship with Russia are bigger than President Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal.
“I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy – yet Obama can make a deal with Iran, #1 in terror, no problem!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy – yet Obama can make a deal with Iran, #1 in terror, no problem!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 7, 2017
Trump and Putin spoke for an hour by phone last weekend, according to the White House. It was reportedly the first time Trump and Putin have spoken since Trump was elected.
Trump’s relationship and opinions of Putin have been under the microscope for more than a year since he praised the Russian strongman for his leadership. Trump has seemed to brush aside concerns about Putin killing domestic political opponents, including in an interview with Fox News aired before the Super Bowl when he said the U.S. has “a lot of killers” too.
An unverified dossier released by Buzzfeed last month alleged Trump worked with the Russian government during the campaign to hurt Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of being elected. Trump has vehemently denied those accusations and called them “fake news.”
The U.S. intelligence community determined the Russians ran an influence campaign on the U.S. presidential election with the aim of getting Trump into the White House but did not allege Trump was complicit.
Trump compared those issues to the Obama administration opening up diplomatic relations with Iran, including a deal aimed at keeping the Iranians from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The deal has been assailed by Republicans in Washington who say it did nothing to keep the Islamic Republic from continuing to work on nuclear weapons and criticized Obama for trusting Iran, widely believed to be the top state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
