Trump Says He’s Seen No Evidence Of Putin Killing Journalists

In a phone interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week”, Trump said he would “get along fine with Putin”.

“The thing that is so concerning about Mr. Trump’s compliments of Vladimir Putin is Vladimir Putin has slaughtered his own, murdered his own people, including people I knew”, McCain told Concord News Radio in a weekend interview. I don’t know that he killed reporters. Have you been able to prove that?’.

The Committee to Protect Journalists lists 56 journalists killed in the course of their work since 1993, including many who reported on the Chechen conflict that dominated the first years of Putin’s presidency.

Still, Trump sounded eager to defend Putin, even against widespread allegations that Putin “kills journalists, political opponents and … invades countries”, in the words of “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough.

“If he has killed reporters I think that’s awful”, Trump said.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has intensified his criticism of Trump in recent days, called Putin “a dictator” and “a bully”.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s campaign on Saturday issued a mock press release announcing that Trump had named Putin his running mate.

US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mutual admiration of one another appears to be going strong.

“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. “But I have never seen any information or any proof that he killed reporters”. Republicans have frequently taken to bashing Putin and have used his rocky relationship with Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama as evidence that the administration lacks strength in global affairs.

“And anybody that does, I think, would be despicable”, he concluded.

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

This week, Putin said Trump is “a very bright and talented man”.

Talk about an unlikely bromance: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Western governments accuse Russian Federation of providing fighters and weapons to the separatists, but Moscow has long denied the accusations and claimed all of its citizens fighting alongside the rebels are independent “volunteers”.

Mitt Romney jumped on that comment, tweeting that there’s an important distinction between a “thug” like Putin killing journalists and a U.S. President killing terrorists and enemy combatants. “Not a bad thing”, Trump said.