[Vladimir Putin] complimented him. That led Donald Trump to then compliment Vladimir Putin and to defend Vladimir Putin's actions in a number of places around the world.
I don't believe Vladimir Putin is a killer, a threat to France, to others in this region. Nothing Vladimir Putin has done would make me reach that conclusion.
The Trump campaign management team had to be fired a month or so ago because of those shadowy connections with pro-Putin forces. Governor Pence made the odd claim, he said inarguably Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama. Vladimir Putin has run his economy into the ground. He persecutes LGBT folks and journalists. If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you got to go back to a fifth-grade civics class.
It's more of a strength model to say that [Vladimir] Putin will do what it takes to defend his country. But that's why Putin is dangerous and Russia is a major cause of concern for us .
The Kremlin, this cadre of people supporting Vladimir Putin, and Vladimir Putin himself understand is strength, is resolve.
Vladimir Putin is a dictator. He's not a leader. Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know Russian history and they don't know Vladimir Putin. Hillary Clinton knows exactly who this guy is. John McCain said, I look in his eyes and I see KGB. And Hillary kind of has that same feeling.
[ Donald Trump is] candidate who said he has more confidence in Vladimir Putin's strength than in Barack Obama's strength. His closeness to Putin is a very scary thing for the country and the fact that the news was dominated for 33 days I think it was by WikiLeaks stories, that had an impact on states that were decided by a knife-edge.
Vladimir Putin doesn't really gain anything economically from annexation of Crimea. It's more a gain of power. It's a gain of what he can say to his home population about what he's accomplished as president. And so it's really much more an individual gain for Putin politically than for Russia as a state, because over the long term, Russia is not going to particularly benefit from this.
[Vladimir] Putin wants to keep [Bashar] Assad in power and expand his own military base in Syria, whatever the cost. I even believe he has an interest in more and more people fleeing the country. The flow of refugees improves his negotiating position toward the West, including the German chancellor.
Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.
The Russian economy is tanking. It's gotten so bad that today Vladimir Putin had to pawn his stolen Super Bowl ring. And Putin will finance his next invasion on Kickstarter.
Vladimir Putin would like to have more influence in Ukraine. He would like to have Ukraine always knocked slightly off balance so that they don't know what he might do next. He would like to demonstrate that he has more power than the Ukrainians do. And so certainly by making a frozen conflict situation where Ukraine never really has a definitive sense of sovereignty over its own territory, that's in Putin's interest.
Vladimir Putin is a dictator. He's not a leader. Anybody who thinks otherwise doesn't know Russian history and they don't know Vladimir Putin.
I think Vladimir Putin, because of all of his experiences, has a real fear about being - about NATO being on his borders. He's always had that.
Vladimir Putin hates America, he wants to hurt us. Suddenly Vladimir Putin is a good guy, Russia is okay, no it's not. Russia is evil, Russia is our enemy.
The regime is in trouble economically and can no longer offer anything to its citizens. That's why [Vladimir] Putin has to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, so he can serve his people the fairy tale of Russian pride and regaining its strength as a major power.