Trump “behaves extravagantly of course, we see this, but I think there’s a reason for this. He represents part of US society that’s tired of having the elite in power for decades,” Putin said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a group of foreign policy experts in southern Russia on Thursday that Donald Trump’s “extravagant behavior” is just his way of getting his message across to voters.
“He has chosen a method to get through to voters’ hearts,” Putin said at the annual meeting of the the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia.
Trump “behaves extravagantly of course, we see this, but I think there’s a reason for this. He represents part of US society that’s tired of having the elite in power for decades,” Putin said.
Putin said the mainstream US media claim he supports Trump over Hillary Clinton is “nonsense,” but that Russia “welcomes statements that US-Russian relations should be improved from anyone.” The US intelligence community has accused the Russian government of being behind hacks of Democratic organizations’ emails, a charge Russia has denied.
Putin and Clinton, the Democratic nominee, have a history of mutual distrust. It stems from Clinton’s claim in 2011 that Russia’s elections that year were fraudulent — which Putin said “set the tone for certain actors inside the country” to protest — and her support for a military intervention in Libya to oust Moammar Gadhafi, which he said was done “without court or investigation.”
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