Vice President Mike Pence said President Trump was not drawing a “moral equivalency” between the United States and Russia, after Mr. Trump’s recent comments that the U.S. has a lot of “killers.”
“What President Trump is determined to do is reassert American leadership on the world stage and look for renewed relationships with countries around the world, including Russia,” Mr. Pence said in an interview with Fox News posted Monday.
“And the statements that he made were not in any way a moral equivalency between the high ideals and practices of the American people and the people of Russia, but rather what the president is seeking to do is begin anew a relationship with the people of Russia and with their leadership,” he said.
“To say, are there ways that we can begin to work together,” he said.
“We face very serious challenges in the world,” Mr. Pence said. “We have to develop new coalitions and new partnerships to confront radical Islamic terrorism and particularly Russia and the United States have a common enemy in ISIS.”
In an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that aired Sunday, Mr. Trump had said he respects Russian President Vladimir Putin but that he’s not sure if he’s going to get along with him.
Mr. O’Reilly called Mr. Putin a “killer,” referring to reports that the Russian leader has order the killings of dissidents and journalists.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?” Mr. Trump replied.
The Kremlin said Monday they’d like to hear an apology from Fox News for the assertion from Mr. O’Reilly.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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