Politics

Trump Asked About Russian Election Meddling — Says, ‘I Beat Hillary Clinton Easily’

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Benny Johnson Columnist, Viral Politics
Font Size:

A tense and contentious press conference just concluded between Russian and American leaders in Finland.

The much-anticipated meeting was punctuated by Trump’s answer to the question on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Trump tweeted Monday, “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” in reference to the Muller investigation into potential Russian collusion with team Trump during the 2016 election.

At the joint presser, a reporter asked Trump, “Mr. President, you tweeted this morning that it’s U.S. foolishness, stupidity and the Mueller probe that is responsible for the decline in U.S. Relations with Russia. Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular? If so, what would you consider them that they are responsible for?”

President Trump said that “both countries are responsible,” for the breakdown of U.S.-Russian relations.

“I think the United States has been foolish. I think we’ve all been foolish,” Trump said. “We should have had this dialogue a long time ago. A long time before I got to office, and I think we’re all to blame.”

On the point of collusion, Trump was particularly blunt, bringing up Hillary Clinton multiple times: “There was no collusion at all. Everybody knows it. It was a clean campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily and frankly we beat her … we won that race and it is a shame that there can be a cloud over it.”

Trump then interrupted the next question asked of Putin, saying, “Democrats lost an election which frankly they should have been able to win because the electoral college is more advantageous to Democrats than it is to Republicans. We won the electoral college by a lot. 306 to 223 I believe. And that was a well-fought battle.”

Trump concluded by saying again that there was no collusion: “We ran a brilliant campaign, and that’s why I’m President.”

WATCH: