Fox News Was Just Tougher On Putin Than Donald Trump

Putin: Let me start answering your question with something a little bit different. Let’s have a look at it this way. People are talking about interference of Russia with the election process in the United States. I have mentioned this in 2016 and I want to say it now again and I really wish for your American listeners to listen to what I say. First of all, Russia as a state has never interfered with the internal affairs of the United States, let alone its elections.

Wallace: But this is the indictment. I have 12 names here. It talks about specific units of the GRU, Russian military intelligence. Is the GRU not part of the Russian state?

Putin: I will get to it. Just have a little bit of patience you will get a full answer to your question. Interference with domestic affairs of the United States, do you really believe that someone acting from the Russian territory could have influenced the United States and influenced the choice of millions of

Wallace: I’m not asking if they influenced, I’m asking whether they tried.

Putin: I’m about to answer. This was the first point I was trying to make. If you have some patience, you will hear the entire response. I said this in 2016 and I say it now, the idea was about hacking an email account of a democratic candidate. Was it rigging of facts? Was it forgery of facts? That the important thing, the point that I’m trying to make. Was there any false information planted? No, it wasn’t. These hackers — I will get back to it, just bear with me for a moment. They hacked a certain email account and there was an information about manipulation conducted within the Democratic Party to incline the process in favor of one candidate and as far as I know the entire party leadership resigned. They admitted the fact of their manipulation, so that’s one thing. Manipulation of the public opinion should stop and an apology should be made to the public at large instead of looking for those responsible or the party at fault. And now to the mentioned things. As I said in the press conference —

Wallace: President, may I just say, you are indicating that they stole real money, not counterfeit money. Are you saying it’s okay because of the fact that they took from the DNC, from John Podesta, it was their real emails, so it’s okay to hack and spread this information out and interfere with the election?