WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he respects Vladimir Putin, and when an interviewer called the Russian leader “a killer,” Trump said the United States has many of them.
“What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?” he told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly in an excerpt released by the network. The president’s interview was to air Sunday afternoon on the Super Bowl pregame show.
Trump has long expressed a wish for better ties with Moscow, praised Putin and signaled that US-Russia relations could be in line for a makeover, even after US intelligence agencies determined that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential campaign to help Trump win against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Putin has called Trump a “very bright and talented man.”
During Putin’s years in power, a number of prominent Russian opposition figures and journalists have been killed.
In the interview, Trump says, “I do respect him,” and then is asked why.
“I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with him. He’s a leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world — that’s a good thing,” Trump said, using an acronym for the Daesh group. “Will I get along with him? I have no idea.”
O’Reilly then said about Putin: “But he’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.”
Trump responded: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?“
In the excerpt, Trump did not cite specific USactions. It was unclear whether he expanded on the comment or added context later in the interview.
“I don’t think there’s any comparison,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I really do resent that he would say something like that,” she said.
The Kremlin had no immediate comment on Trump’s interview.
The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, distanced himself from the president.
“Putin’s a former KGB agent. He’s a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election. The Russians annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine and messed around in our elections. And no, I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does,” McConnell told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
While saying he would not critique “every utterance” by Trump, McConnell said he thinks “America’s exceptional, America is different, we don’t operate in any way the way the Russians do. I think there’s a clear distinction here that all Americans understand, and no, I would not have characterized it that way.”
“I obviously don’t see this issue the same way he does,” McConnell said.
Vice President Mike Pence denied that Trump’s comments were a false equivalency between Putin’s actions and those of US leaders, adding that Trump was trying to reset the US relationship with Russia, as he promised in the campaign.
“If we were able to work with Russia to hunt down and destroy ISIS and confront radical Islamic terrorism, that would be a good thing,” Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “What you have in President Trump is someone who is not going to look in the rearview mirror so much as looking out the windshield.”
O’Reilly also asked Trump to back up his claims that some 3 million to 5 million illegal votes were cast in the election. Trump didn’t answer directly, but asserted that immigrants in the US illegally and dead people are on the voter rolls. “It’s a really a bad situation, it’s really bad,” Trump said.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the Nov. 8 election. Trump won the Electoral College vote but lost the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million votes to Clinton.
Trump recently announced on Twitter that he would call for a “major investigation” into voter fraud, but the plan for Trump to take some type of executive action on the issue has been delayed, senior administration officials said last week.
McConnell, meanwhile, said such an investigation should be handled by the states, which historically have been the ones to probe such allegations.
“There’s no evidence that it occurred in such a significant number that would have changed the presidential election, and I don’t think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that,” McConnell told CNN. “I think the states can take a look at this issue.”
The Trump administration on Thursday revised recent US sanctions that had unintentionally prevented American companies from exporting certain consumer electronic products to Russia. The change allows companies to deal with Russia’s security service, which licenses such exports under Russian law.
The products were not intended to be covered by the sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Dec. 29 after US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election. The White House denied it was easing sanctions.
Also last week, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley condemned Russia’s “aggressive actions” in eastern Ukraine and warned Moscow that US sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea will remain until the peninsula is returned to Ukraine.
But she tempered her criticism, saying it was “unfortunate” that she had to condemn Russia in her first appearance at the UN Security Council.
“We do want to better our relations with Russia,” Haley said.
Asked about Putin, Trump says US isn’t ‘so innocent’
Asked about Putin, Trump says US isn’t ‘so innocent’
Japan restarts world’s biggest nuclear plant
- Japan wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels
KARIWA: The world’s biggest nuclear power plant was restarted Wednesday for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, its Japanese operator said, despite persistent safety concerns among residents.
The plant was “started at 19:02” (1002 GMT), Tokyo Electric Power Company spokesman Tatsuya Matoba said of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata prefecture.
The regional governor approved the resumption last month, although public opinion remains sharply divided.
On Tuesday, a few dozen protesters — mostly elderly — braved freezing temperatures to demonstrate in the snow near the plant’s entrance, whose buildings line the Sea of Japan coast.
“It’s Tokyo’s electricity that is produced in Kashiwazaki, so why should the people here be put at risk? That makes no sense,” Yumiko Abe, a 73-year-old resident, told AFP.
Around 60 percent of residents oppose the restart, while 37 percent support it, according to a survey conducted in September.
TEPCO said Wednesday it would “proceed with careful verification of each plant facility’s integrity” and address any issues appropriately and transparently.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the world’s biggest nuclear power plant by potential capacity, although just one reactor of seven was restarted.
The facility was taken offline when Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal earthquake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011.
However, resource-poor Japan now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has voiced support for the energy source.
Fourteen reactors, mostly in western and southern Japan, have resumed operation since the post-Fukushima shutdown under strict safety rules, with 13 running as of mid-January. The vast Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex has been fitted with a 15-meter-high (50-foot) tsunami wall, elevated emergency power systems and other safety upgrades.
However, residents raised concerns about the risk of a serious accident, citing frequent cover-up scandals, minor accidents and evacuation plans they say are inadequate.
