Russia and Putin · 2016 campaign · № 16
Said Putin 'has been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader'
“If he says great things about me, I'm gonna say great things about him. I've already said he is really very much of a leader. I mean, the man has very strong control over a country. And that's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system. But certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.”
- Said
- , NBC News Commander-in-Chief Forum, Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York
- Subject
- Commander-in-Chief Forum
- Type
- Praise and deference
- Topic
- Foreign policy
- Era
- 2016 campaign
What happened
The forum, hosted by NBC News and moderated by Matt Lauer, had Trump and Hillary Clinton stake out positions on national security and was billed as a preview of the first debate on September 26. The day before, at a town hall in Virginia Beach with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump had said: 'Putin looks at Hillary Clinton and he smiles. Boy, would he like to see her.' The day after the forum he told Larry King that Russian interference in the election was 'probably unlikely'.