Putin More of a Leader Than Obama: Donald Trump

By Sona Kadam on September 8, 2016 at 12:38 PM

- - Advertisement - -

“He has been more of a leader than U.S. President Barack Obama.” These are the words of US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday During an NBC News forum.

“He is really very much of a leader,” Trump said of Putin. “You can say, ‘Oh, isn’t that a terrible thing,’ I mean, the man has very strong control over his country. 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.

“Russia wants to defeat ISIS as badly as we do,” he said. “If we had a relationship with Russia wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could work on it together and knock the hell out of ISIS?”

He further criticized U.S. military action in Iraq under Obama,”If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the power and wealth of that oil.”

When asked how he’d be able to change Putin’s stance on key issues, Trump said he thought he could. “I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin, and I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Russia.”

Trump and Clinton will more directly face off in their first presidential debate on September 26. There will be two more debates in October ahead of the November 8 election.