During a Wednesday interview with the Washington Post, Donald Trump dismissed accusations that he has “embraced” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“By the way, that’s a totally false narrative. I haven’t embraced them. You know that,” Trump said when asked about his kind words for Putin.
“I simply said that Putin is a stronger leader than Obama,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly praised Putin throughout the campaign. And earlier this month, he said at an NBC forum that Putin has been a leader “far more than our president has been a leader.”
The Republican nominee has also been questioned about his business ties to Russia, but it’s still unclear whether Russian business interests have invested in his projects.
Trump also went after Anderson Cooper in his interview with the Washington Post, arguing that the CNN host should not have been selected as a moderator for one of the presidential debates.
“I don’t think Anderson Cooper should be a moderator, because Anderson Cooper works for CNN and over the last couple of days, I’ve seen how Anderson Cooper behaves,” Trump told the Post. “He’ll be very biased, very biased. I don’t think he should be a moderator. I’ll participate, but I don’t think he should be a moderator. CNN is the Clinton News Network and Anderson Cooper, I don’t think he can be fair.”
And Trump defended his relationship with the facts when asked about potential for moderators to fact-check him during the debates.
“I don’t care. My facts are good. My facts are good. I don’t get enough credit for having my facts right,” Trump said. “They’ll say I’m wrong even when I’m right.”
