Republican Rep. Chris Collins has distanced himself from comments made by President Donald Trump that seemed to equate the US and Russian governments morally, telling CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that he “would not have used those words.”
When asked if he was comfortable with the President comparing US leaders to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Collins said that he was not comfortable at “where it went as reported by the press.”
After being pressed on Trump’s statement that “we have a lot of killers,” Collins said that, while he would not have used Trump’s wording, “it certainly is true that our military does take out terrorists using drones and other means, but certainly not on US soil, which is what, certainly, most people acknowledge Russia has been doing to their political opponents.”
Collins then again focused on the media’s role, saying “it’s the aggressive press that we have that does try to push President Trump into an area where maybe he will say something that then they’ll just jump on.”
The New York representative’s comments came Monday — after President Trump caused a stir over the weekend when he expressed respect for Putin and seemed to equate Russia with the United States during a Super Bowl interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.
“There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” the President fired back after O’Reilly described Russia’s authoritarian leader as a “killer.”