Donald Trump denied that he had any ties to government officials or investors in Russia in a Tuesday interview with WFOR, Miami’s CBS affiliate.
“What’s your impression of this notion that the Russians are trying to get you elected?” CBS host Jim DeFede asked.
“I don’t know anything about it. I can tell you that I think if I came up with that they’d say, ‘Oh, it’s a conspiracy theory, it’s ridiculous,’” Trump said. “I mean I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world but we’re not involved in Russia.”
Emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee’s email system were released last week, embarrassing party officials and prompting the ouster of chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The cyber attack was widely attributed to Russian intelligence forces.
In the wake of the hack, Trump’s stance on Russia has come under scrutiny, including his successful intervention in the GOP platform to soften language in defense of Ukraine, frequent praise of Russian president Vladimir Putin, and claim that the U.S. would not necessarily intervene to assist its NATO allies in the Baltics in the case of a Russian military intervention. Even President Barack Obama noted that Putin would likely prefer a Trump presidency and said “anything’s possible” when asked if Russia, which has denied any involvement in the attack, would intervene in the election to help him get elected.
Though the campaign and candidate himself have denied having “any business dealings in/with Russia,” several Trump projects in the U.S. have been funded by Russian capital. Bloomberg Politics has documented Trump’s “decades-long effort” to conduct business in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.
DeFede told Trump that the implication was that his “companies are beholden to Russian investment, that Russian dollars have flown into your businesses.”
Trump replied that he had “nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.”
“So you have no loans from Russian banks or investors?” DeFede asked.
“Absolutely not,” Trump insisted.
Watch video of the interview below.
