‘Clever’ Trump will soon grasp role: Putin
PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin said yesterday US president-elect Donald Trump was intelligent and predicted he would quickly grasp his new level of responsibility and act accordingly.
“Since he managed to achieve success in business, that shows he is a clever person,” the Russian strongman said in an interview with NTV television.
“If he’s clever, that means he will fully and quite quickly grasp a different level of responsibility.”
Putin said that Russia “expects that he will act precisely on this basis”.
The Kremlin said last month the two men had agreed, in their first phone call after Trump’s win in November, on the need to “normalise” Russia-US relations. Putin has reiterated Moscow’s readiness to work with Trump’s administration once the president-elect took office in January.
“It is important to normalise and start to develop bilateral relations on an equal and mutually beneficial basis,” Putin said in his annual state of the nation address.
Trump has praised Putin’s leadership and said he looked forward to “a strong and enduring relationship with Russia”. During the election campaign, Putin praised him for appealing effectively to disenchanted American electors.
“He represents the views of a significant part of society in the US that is tired of those elites who have been in power for decades,” he said in October.
“He just represents the interests of such ordinary people, and he presents himself as an ordinary guy who criticises those who have already been in power for decades.” — AFP