Donald Trump does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he is supportive of one thing Putin is doing on the world stage.
During an interview with “Meet The Press” Sunday, Trump told moderator Chuck Todd that he supports Putin going out and “bombing the hell” out of the Islamic State in Syria, despite that they are doing so to support Syrian President Bashir al-Assad.
“I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS, and it’s going to be ISIS. I’ll tell you why — Putin has to get rid of ISIS because Putin doesn’t want ISIS coming into Russia,” said Trump, who leads the Washington Examiner’s latest power rankings.
However, Trump made it clear that he does not trust the Russian president when pressed by the host.
“I don’t trust him,” Trump said. “I don’t trust him at all — other than we both got very good ratings the other night on ’60 Minutes’ ’cause it was with me and Putin. Can you believe this? So I don’t know. Did I get the ratings or did he?”
“It’s not a question of trust,” Trump said. “We’ve spent now — we’ve spent $2 trillion in Iraq, probably $1 trillion in Afghanistan. We’re in there — we’re destroying our country. We owe $19 trillion, we’re bogged down. Russia was bogged down in Afghanistan, meaning the Soviet Union. It broke up the Soviet Union. They’re going to get bogged down, you watch.”
“I would sit back and lets see what’s going on,” Trump said. “I’m not justifying Putin, but you watch — he’ll get bogged down there. He’ll be there, he’ll spend a fortune, he’ll be begging to get out.”
