Trump defends respect for Putin: 'You think our country's so innocent?'


An advance excerpt of a Fox News interview between President Trump and Bill O'Reilly sees the president defending his respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin by suggesting those who believe the United States does not engage in strongman practices are naive.
"Well, I respect a lot of people but that doesn't mean I'm going to get along with him," Trump said of Putin, adding that Russia could be a valuable ally to the United States in the war on terror. "But he's a killer, though," O'Reilly pushed back. "Putin's a killer." Trump nodded, and said, "There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?"
The full conversation between Trump and O'Reilly will air Sunday at 4 p.m. ET on Fox. Watch the excerpt of Trump's comments below. Bonnie Kristian
The Week
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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.
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