Trump quotes Putin condemning American democracy, praises autocrat Orban
In response to Vladimir Putin’s recent comments criticizing American democracy, President Donald Trump praised autocrat Viktor Orban of Hungary while shifting blame onto China and other countries for “undermining” the United States.
In a recent interview with Russian state media, Putin said he didn’t understand how U.S.-style democracy could work in the modern world.
“The United States continues to exert efforts to adhere to their own very outdated rules,” Putin said, “thus creating chaos in some countries, meddling in the internal affairs of other sovereign states, and not recognizing the achievements of other states that are striving to shape a more just and effective world order.”
In response, President Trump praised Orban as someone who had “done a tremendous job in so many different ways.”
“He’s a respected man,” Trump said. “He’s done the right thing, according to many people, on immigration. And you look at some of the problems that they have in Europe that are tremendous because they’ve done it a different way than the Prime Minister.”
Trump went on to criticize China, Iran and “other countries” as the real sources of U.S. woes, saying “we’re being held back by certain countries, including some that we have large trading relationships with, and really are taking advantage of us in many different ways.”