Does Trump Dislike Clinton? 'No,' He Surprisingly Tells Russian TV

— -- Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump praised Vladimir Putin during NBC News' "Commander-In-Chief Forum" -- he said the Russian president is "stronger" than President Obama -- the Republican presidential nominee was interviewed over the phone by the Kremlin-backed TV network RT.

But the interview -- conducted by Larry King on his show "Politicking" -- ended on a strange note after about 10 minutes, when King asked Trump, "On this immigration issue, what are your feelings about Mexican immigrants? What in your gut do you feel about this?"

Trump's response? Radio silence.

A puzzled King asked, "Don, are you there?" Perplexed, he told viewers, "I don't know what happened there. We did not lose the connection, so something happened there. Such is life in the big leagues." King then cut to a commercial break, and the show continued with another guest.

Prior to the interview's abrupt ending, Trump did address several topics, including Hillary Clinton, whom he surprisingly did not disparage.

King asked, "You personally don't dislike her?"

"No. It's not about liking or disliking,” Trump said. "I mean, I wish she did a phenomenal job, and we wouldn’t have all these problems.”

He added, "The bottom line is, Larry, she doesn’t have what it takes.”

Trump also downplayed reports that Russia is trying to influence the general election, pointing the finger at the Democrats for furthering that narrative.

"I don't know," he said. "I've been hearing about it. I've been reading about it. I think it's probably unlikely."

He added, "I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out, who knows? I think that it's pretty unlikely, but who knows. I hope that if they are doing something I hope that somebody's going to be able to find out so that they can end it, because that would not be appropriate at all."

Trump told King he didn't want to divulge details of his plan to defeat ISIS. "I don't like talking about it, I'll be honest with you," he said. "I have a very good chance of winning. And honestly I don't want to have to tell the enemy, in order to get two extra votes, exactly what my plan is, when we're going in, what we're going to do. No I have a very distinct plan -- always subject to change of course."

Trump also addressed the pulling out of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2013. "It's a war we shouldn't have been in, number one,” Trump said, "and it's a war that when we got out, we got out the wrong way. That's Obama."