Putin says claims he has compromising info on Trump are 'nonsense'

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Megyn Kelly that aired Sunday he does not have compromising information on President Trump and does not know where he is supposed to have acquired such material.

"Well, this is just another load of nonsense," Putin said in response to Kelly's question on whether he has "something damaging on our president." "Where would we get this information from? Why, did we have some special relationship with him? We didn't have any relationship at all," he added.

Putin said he did not meet with Trump when the president, then a private citizen, visited Moscow on business trips. "Right now, I think we have representatives from a hundred American companies that have come to Russia," he said. "Do you think we're gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something? Are you all, have you all lost your senses over there?"

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

From 1975 through the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Putin was an agent of the Soviet spy agency, the KGB. Modern Russia engages in mass domestic surveillance.

The interview, which aired in full Sunday evening, was Kelly's big debut at NBC, a performance that was widely panned. However, in addition to his comments about rumors of compromising information, Putin also weighed in on headline-making topics including his relationship with ousted U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and manipulation of the 2016 election.