Putin on Flynn: 'I didn't even really talk to him'

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he has no substantial relationship with ousted U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, while speaking with NBC's Megyn Kelly in an interview that was filmed on Friday and will air in full Sunday evening.

"You and I, you and I personally, have a much closer relationship than I had with Mr. Flynn," Putin said in a translated voiceover. In Putin's account of a widely circulated photo of the Russian president eating dinner next to Flynn, the seating arrangement was unexpected. "I got up and left," Putin said. "And then afterwards I was told, 'You know there was an American gentleman. He was involved in some things. He used to be in the security services' ... that's it. I didn't even really talk to him."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.