President Trump denied he was “pro-Russia” and slammed former CIA Director John Brennan in a Fox News interview airing Tuesday night, after the ex-intelligence chief described Trump’s news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin as “treasonous.”
“I think Brennan is a very bad guy and if you look at it a lot of things happened under his watch,” Trump told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Monday. “I think he’s a very bad person.”
The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” interview was recorded in Helsinki following the Trump-Putin news conference, at which Trump appeared to dismiss the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. Trump backtracked on Tuesday, claiming he meant to say he didn’t see why Russia “wouldn’t” be responsible for the meddling.
On Monday, Brennan tweeted that Trump’s performance at the news conference “rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.'”
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“Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin,” added Brennan. “Republican Patriots: Where are you???”
In his interview, Trump compared Brennan to FBI official Peter Strzok, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
“When you watch all of the things that have happened … you look at the deception, the lies,” Trump told Carlson. “These are people that in my opinion are truly bad people, and they’re being exposed for what they are.”
When Carlson asked Trump if he considered Russia America’s greatest adversary, the president answered: “I won’t even use the word adversary. We can all work together. We can do great. Everybody can do well and we can live in peace.”
