‘Putin would have preferred Hillary’

US President Donald Trump, battling allegations that Russia helped him win the White House, claimed on Wednesday that Vladimir Putin actually would have preferred a Hillary Clinton victory.

In an interview with Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network, the billionaire president claimed his Russian counterpart would have preferred a win by the Democrat Clinton in 2016.

“There are many things that I do that are the exact opposite of what he (Putin) would want,” Trump said, even though he got along “very, very well” with the longtime Russian leader, whom he met in Hamburg last week.

“So what I keep hearing about that he would have rather had Trump, I think ‘probably not,’ because when I want a strong military, you know she wouldn’t have spent the money on military,” he said.

“When I want tremendous energy — we’re opening up coal, we’re opening up natural gas, we’re opening up fracking, all the things that he would hate but nobody ever mentions that,” he said.

Trump said that while he only learned of his son’s 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer “a couple of days ago,” he did not fault Donald Jr for holding the talks.

“I think many people would have held that meeting,” he told the Reuters news agency.

“This is the greatest Witch Hunt in political history. Sad!” tweeted Trump, who has kept a low profile since returning from a Group of 20 summit in Germany and flew out of Washington again late Wednesday for a visit to France.