Donald Trump: No proof Putin has ‘killed anybody’

“Has anybody proven that he’s killed reporters and I’m not trying to stick up for anybody”. At a gathering in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Saturday, Trump explained the criticism coming his way from the other Republican candidates: “Now, they’re jealous as hell because he’s not mentioning these people”.

Talk about an unlikely bromance: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. “Obama doesn’t get along with Putin, ” he said on ABC’s This Week.

In an interview on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor”, Trump spokesperson Katrina Pearson questioned if it is any good for the U.S.to have nuclear weapons while hesitating to use them.

Trump opined that Putin had not “stood with a gun or taken the blame or admitted that he’s killed”.

Trump was clearly gratified by Putin’s comments, saying in a Friday interview on NBC, “When people call you “brilliant” it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russian Federation”. “But you’re making these accusations and I don’t – I don’t see any proof”.

Although the USA and Russian Federation have been longtime foes, relations between the two nations have deteriorated rapidly over the past two years, following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March last year, and the subsequent imposition of economic sanctions on Russian Federation.

In 2012, The Guardian’s Peter Preston catalogued the deaths of journalists since Putin came to power, many of them dying by gunshot wounds.

“I’m not”, Trump responded.

The Committee to Protect Journalists lists at least 36 reporters killed in Russian Federation since 1993. “I think that my words represent toughness and strength, ” he said.

During a news conference last week, Putin praised Trump – who carries a commanding lead over his 13 GOP opponents in the national polls – as “a very bright and talented man” and “the absolute leader of the presidential race”.

But confronted with pushback, Trump actually embraced Putin with even greater vigor. I don’t know that he killed reporters.

The killing that the United States has done was “what we’re doing in the Middle East, we went into Iraq, we shouldn’t have”, Trump argued.

Trump, for his part, returned the praise, saying in a statement that “it is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond”.

Opposing conventional knowledge, Trump continued by saying he has yet to see any evidence that Putin as killed anybody “in terms of reporters”.

“I really believe that Russian Federation and the United States can be a positive force together as opposed to really working negatively with each other all the time”, he said.