A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized President Obama on Wednesday for attacking Donald Trump, claiming such rhetoric is “unlikely” to improve the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Russia.
“Unfortunately, we see continued displays of often hard-core Russophobia,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call, one day after Obama slammed Trump for giving an interview to a Kremlin-funded TV station and suggesting the Republican presidential nominee is trying to “curry favor” with Putin.
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“This rhetoric, which is being formulated in electoral campaign style … is unlikely to help fledgling fragile attempts to build at least some sort of mutual trust [between the U.S. and Russia],” Peskov added.
During a solo campaign appearance for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, Obama lambasted Trump for viewing Putin as his “role model.” The president noted that while he “has to do business with Russia,” he doesn’t lavish praise on the country’s leader.
Trump told NBC News’ Matt Lauer during a foreign policy forum last week that Putin has behaved like a strong leader “far more often than our own president has been a leader,” and that he would continue to accept compliments from the Russian president as long as he’s giving them.
“The man has very strong control over a country,” Trump said. “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.”
