Hillary Clinton criticized Donald Trump’s lavish praise of Russian president Vladimir Putin, calling the GOP nominee’s flattering remarks “reckless and dangerous.”
“Every day that goes by, this just becomes more and more of a reality television show,” Clinton said at the end of a press conference Friday afternoon. “It’s not a serious presidential campaign. And it is beyond one’s imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Vladimir Putin and throwing his lot in with him, in the way that he has approved of his wish list and not even really understanding what Putin has already done like invading and occupying Crimea.”
She continued, “No one who wants to assume the responsibility of being president and commander in chief should be making the kind of reckless and dangerous statements, and identifying with a regime that has some aggressive tendencies toward our interests.”
Clinton added that while she wasn’t surprised by Trump’s remarks, she was “certainly disappointed that someone running for president of the U.S. would continue this unseemly identification with and praise of the Russian president, including on Russian television.”
Trump stood by his praise of Putin during NBC’s Commander-in-Chief forum earlier this week, suggesting the Russian president is a better leader than President Barack Obama.
“I think when he calls me ‘brilliant,’ I’ll take the compliment,” Trump said. “If he says great things about me, I’m gonna say great things about him.
Even though Putin regularly flouts international norms and has a well-documented history of human rights abuses, Trump’s allies are standing by the GOP nominee’s praise.
“I think it’s inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country,” Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the GOP vice presidential nominee, said Thursday.
“I want a president that I see as strong and one sitting across, maybe, the chess board with Putin that I think he has a chance of winning,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). “I don’t think anybody thinks Obama wins in that today.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
Before You Go
