Trump suggests Putin would have preferred Clinton in office
His claim came during an interview with Pat Robertson for "The 700 Club."
— -- President Donald Trump suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have been happier if Hillary Clinton had won the election, according to a press release for an interview with Pat Robertson for "The 700 Club," which will air in full Thursday morning.
"We are the most powerful country in the world, and we are getting more and more powerful because I'm a big military person. As an example, if Hillary had won, our military would be decimated. Our energy would be much more expensive. That's what Putin doesn't like about me. And that's why I say, why would he want me? Because from Day One, I wanted a strong military. He doesn't want to see that," Trump said, according to the press release.
"And from Day One, I want fracking and everything else to get energy prices low and to create tremendous energy. We're going to be self-supporting. We just about are now. We're going to be exporting energy. He doesn't want that. He would like Hillary, where she wants to have windmills. He would much rather have that because energy prices would go up and Russia, as you know, relies very much on energy," Trump added, according to the press release.
"There are many things that I would do that are the exact opposite of what he would want," Trump said.
A video clip from the interview centered on talk about the recent G-20 summit, with Trump speaking highly of his relationships with other world leaders and touting the cease-fire deal in Syria that he and Putin reached.
"We had a good meeting," Trump said of his meeting with Putin. "I think we had an excellent meeting. One thing we did is we have a cease-fire in a major part of Syria where there was tremendous bedlam and tremendous killing. And by the way, this cease-fire has held for four days — those cease-fires haven't held at all. That's because President Putin and President Trump made the deal."
Trump said it's "important" to have an open dialogue with all countries and saw the summit as a good way of helping build those relationships.
"It was a great G-20. We had 20 countries. I get along — I think really fantastically — with the head of every country," he said.
According to the press release, the interview covered other issues as well, such as Trump's expectation that the Senate will pass the GOP's health care reform bill.
"I am sitting in the Oval Office with a pen in hand, waiting for our senators to give it to me," he said.