A Quote by Michael T. Flynn
Trump respects people who are selfish about their country. Putin is a guy who is very selfish about Russia and about the Russian federation, and he understands the history of his country. You can't say, "I don't like you." You've got to respect him. He's a world leader.
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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.
Russian people really don't like it when somebody does horrible things in Russia, and then can calmly go travel to another country and spend time there. And this is what needs to be done: the Russian people need to be told this, because in today's world, just doing something is not enough. You've got to tell about it, too. If you've done something and haven't told about it, it's as good as if you hadn't done it at all.
And yet there was something about his strength, his arrogance, his sheer size that got under my skin. He probably couldn't even spell vanilla. He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.
I've always felt fine about Putin. I think he is a strong leader, he's a powerful leader, he's represented his country the way - the country is being represented.
We know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin, whether it's saying that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of allies if they were invaded, talking about removing sanctions from Russian officials after they were imposed by the United States and Europe together, because of Russia's aggressiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, his praise for Putin which is I think quite remarkable.
We know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up [Vladimir] Putin, to support Putin, whether it's saying that NATO wouldn't come to the rescue of allies if they were invaded, talking about removing sanctions from Russian officials after they were imposed by the United States and Europe together, because of Russia's aggressiveness in Crimea and Ukraine, his praise for Putin which is I think quite remarkable.
I understand why Vladimir Putin is very popular in Russia - he's probably the first Russian leader to not apologize for being Russian. People always pin it down to one man, but there's hundreds of millions of Russians of various sorts. Putin does seem to be very popular in Russia, if only because he stands up for Russians wherever they are, which is exactly what Americans do with Americans, of course.
If our country got along with Russia, that would be a great thing. When Putin goes out and tells everybody - and you talk about a relationship, but he says Donald Trump is going to win and Donald Trump is a genius, and then I have people saying you should disavow. I said, I'm going to disavow that?
Putin is a leader of his country. I say it's better to get along with Russia than not. And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world major fight, that's a good thing.
I also know that it's not about me, it's about all of you and it's about our country, I know that, I fully understand that. That's why I got involved. It's about all of us together as a country. It's a movement the likes of which we have never in history in this country seen before, never in history. Even the pundits, even the media - that truly dislikes Donald Trump for their own reasons - will admit this is a movement the likes of which people have never seen before.
Putin doesn't conduct elections in the Western sense of elections. This is more accurately probably described as a plebiscite, where people are supposed to express their support for him. The Russian system is not unique in this respect, but it is rather interesting. Here, in the West, the impression that people have is that Putin runs the whole country. This is not so, at all. To a certain extent, you could say that he runs the Kremlin, and this means that it's, in some situations, hard to tell whether it's him running the Kremlin, or the people around him running him.
Nobody wants to intervene in Russian affairs. Russia is a very large country, a very old country, a very disagreeable country inhabited by immense numbers of ignorant people largely possessed of lethal weapons and in a state of extreme disorder. Also Russia is a long way off.
Obviously, guys don't deal with the same level of criticism if they show off their bodies. Russian President Vladimir Putin literally staged a goofy shirtless photo shoot to show the people of Russia how 'handsome' and 'fit' he is. No one questioned his ability to lead a country as a result, although a lot of people did crack jokes about it.
We understand what President Trump means when he talks about taking the country back. He does not see America as a country of people from diverse backgrounds united around values of freedom and respect. In his 'American carnage' version of our country, immigrants and refugees are a threat.
We've got oligarchs. There are certain people that benefit in the Russian sphere if you will. The oligarchs who basically feed Putin, they've got to be hurt without hurting the people. The people are hurting bad enough in Russia, and they're very skeptical of what's going on and all of the corruption goes on in Russia. Russia is not our ally. Russia is not our friend. And to treat Putin as an ally and a friend is wrong.
Let me say this. [Donald] Trump is the only person that has control over what Trump does. Maybe his supporters support him but they don't support every single thing about him. Maybe they are misguided about what it means to be friends with Russia. Maybe they come to my show and they never thought about sexism in the way that I talk about it in a joke.
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