President Donald Trump shied away from sizing up Russian president Vladimir Putin’s leadership during an interview aired Saturday, in an apparent divergence from past praise for the Russian leader.
“Don’t know him, but certainly he is a tough cookie,” Trump said on Watters’ World. “I don’t know how he’s doing for Russia. We’re going to find out one day I guess.”
The remarks come amid controversy over Trump associates’ communications with Russian officials in the run-up to the election, as well as congressional investigations into the matter and Russian election interference more broadly.
Trump praised Putin on the campaign trail and repeatedly pledged to improve relations with the Kremlin.
“He’s running his country and at least he’s a leader, unlike what we have in this country,” Trump said in December 2015.
Asked about allegations that Putin orders the murder of journalists and political opponents, Trump said, “our country does plenty of killing also.”
“There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now,” he said. “A lot of killing going on, a lot of stupidity.”
Trump drew fire from Republican lawmakers in February for appearing to draw a similar equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia.
“We’ve got a lot of killers,” Trump said when confronted with the charge that Putin is a “killer.” “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
Arizona senator John McCain blasted Trump for those remarks on the Senate floor. Florida senator Marco Rubio also condemned the comments.
The House Intelligence Committee is slated to hear from FBI director James Comey and other officials Monday during an open hearing related to the committee’s probe of illicit Russian activities.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes said Sunday that he has seen no evidence of collusion between Trump associates and the Kremlin.
“Up to speed on everything I have up to this morning,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “There is no evidence of collusion.”
Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the committee Adam Schiff said there is “circumstantial evidence” of such collusion.
