Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently thinks Fox News owes him an apology for the "insulting" questions Fox News host Bill O'Reilly posed to President Trump in an interview aired Sunday. In the interview, O'Reilly asked Trump why he was so interested in improving relations with Putin, given that Putin is "a killer." While Trump's response that our country also has "a lot of killers" and isn't "so innocent" has drawn ire from congressional Republicans, it was the question — not the answer — that provoked Putin.
"We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday. O'Reilly's question referred to accusations that the Kremlin has killed opponents, with a judge ruling last year that Putin had "'probably' authorized the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London," Reuters reported. Putin has repeatedly denied those allegations, and Trump said in the interview Sunday that "many people say it wasn't him."
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Fox News and O'Reilly have not yet responded to the Kremlin's request.