Donald Trump has voiced his “respect” for Vladimir Putin, bolstering the Russian leader and infuriating key figures in his own party.
In an interview broadcast ahead of the biggest TV event of the year, yesterday’s Superbowl, the president appeared to equate Russian human rights abuses with American actions.
Asked if Mr Putin was a “killer”, Mr Trump responded: “There are a lot of killers. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?.
Mr Trump’s remarks came as his controversial ban on all citizens from seven Muslim countries visiting the US remained in legal limbo.
A federal appeal court has refused to lift an order from a judge who suspended the ban, provoking another White House social attack on the judiciary.
Mr Trump on Sunday tweeted: “Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”
A few moments later he added: “I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country very carefully. The courts are making the job very difficult.”
The president stressed his respect for Mr Putin, whose also campaigns on tough border controls and whose Kremlin machine holds huge sway over his country’s court system, did not mean he would necessarily get on with the Russian.
Vladimir Putin
But senior Republican lawmakers immediately hit back. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the party’s most senior politicians, said: “I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way that the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does.”
Another senator, former presidential challenger Marco Rubio, referred to the deaths of senior critics of the Putin regime. “When has a Democratic political activists been poisoned by Republicans, or vice versa?” he tweeted. “We are not the same as Putin.”
Kremlin insiders are understood to have been buoyed by Mr Trump’s softer stance on Russia, which some analysts have linked to an upsurge of violence from Putin-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The Trump administration last week weakened sanctions on Russia imposed after the annexation of Ukraine’s largely ethnic Russian region of Crimea. American firms can now deal with Russia’s security service, the KGB successor the FSB.
Last week, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley condemned Russia’s “aggressive actions” in eastern Ukraine and warned Moscow that US sanctions imposed after its annexation of Crimea will remain until the peninsula is returned to Ukraine.
But she tempered her criticism, saying it was “unfortunate” that she had to condemn Russia in her first appearance at the UN Security Council.
“We do want to better our relations with Russia,” Ms Haley said.
Fighting appeared to subside this weekend around the in the Ukrainian town of Avdiyivka after a weeklong surge in violence which claimed 35 lives.
Ukraine has expressed concern that Trump could roll back some sanctions imposed on Russia.
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