Donald Trump’s campaign manager on Friday qualified Mr. Trump’s recently praises of Russian President Vladimir Putin by saying the GOP presidential nominee is demonstrating a willingness to work with others and that Mr. Trump doesn’t agree with Russia’s political system.
“He’s not praising him so much as saying that we’ll work with people — anybody who wants to help stop the advance of ISIS will be welcome in a Trump-Pence administration to do so,” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said on “CBS This Morning.”
“What he said was he’s seen as stronger in his country and he also said, if you pull the whole quote, he said he doesn’t agree with that form of government, but that in that country, Vladimir Putin is strong,” Ms. Conway said.
Ms. Conway also said Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s proposed “Russia reset” when she was secretary of state was a “disastrous idea.”
At an NBC forum Wednesday, Mr. Trump had said if Mr. Putin says great things about him, he’s going to return the praise.
“The man has very strong control over a country,” Mr. Trump said. “Now, it’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.”
Asked about Mr. Trump’s interview this week that was broadcast on a Kremlin-backed TV station, Ms. Conway said Mr. Trump was doing the interview for host Larry King’s podcast.
“He actually did an interview with Larry King, a personal friend of his,” Ms. Conway said. “He said he was doing it for his podcast — didn’t know it would be on Russian TV.”
“I wasn’t involved in the interview. However, I will tell you that he was doing it as a favor to his friend, Larry King, and Larry King has a podcast,” she said.
Mr. King told CNN on Friday that the Russia-backed network, RT America, licenses his show that is produced by Ora TV. Ora TV said the show is produced and owned entirely by Ora Media, LLC., which the company said is solely responsible for the show’s editorial direction.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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