“Certainly, as the leader of a country, you would have to hold him personally responsible, yes.”
It has been an eventful month for Donald Trump to say the least.
A quick recap might be in order.
In a short space of time, the 45th President of the United States of America has:
- Referred to Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
- Kicked off a tense NATO summit by claiming that Germany is “totally controlled” by Russia.
- Broken British royal protocol twice when meeting Queen Elizabeth II.
- Advised UK Prime Minister Theresa May to sue the European Union.
- Met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, causing further controversy in the process.
- And backtracked unconvincingly on his incendiary comments immediately afterwards.
All that and people questioning whether or not he’s a puppet for Putin.
Trump seems committed to damage control on that front, as he doubles down on shifting blame back towards the Russian president.
In a new interview with CBS Evening News, Trump once again supported the findings from U.S. intelligence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election that saw him rise to power.
“I’ve said that numerous times before, and I would say that that is true, yeah,” offered Trump.
CBS anchor Jeff Glor noted that Trump has yet to specifically condemn Putin, and asked if he holds his Russian counterpart “personally responsible” for the alleged tampering.
“Well, I would, because he’s in charge of the country, just like I consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country,” said Trump.
“Certainly, as the leader of a country, you would have to hold him personally responsible, yes.”
Glor then asked what Trump said to Putin during their meeting.
“Very strong on the fact that we can’t have meddling, we can’t have any of that. Now look, we’re also living in a grown-up world. President Obama supposedly made a strong statement; nobody heard it.
“What they did here is the statement he made to Putin’s very close friend, and that statement was not acceptable. Didn’t get very much play, relatively speaking, but that statement was not acceptable.
“I let him know we can’t have this, we’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
You can watch the full interview below.
Clip via CBS Evening News
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