Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been better off if presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election, President Donald Trump said in an interview on Wednesday, Sputnik reported.
"There are many things that I do that are the exact opposite of what he [Putin] would want," Trump told CBN News. "So, what I keep hearing about that he would have rather had Trump, I think 'probably not."
As an example, Trump explained that he wants a "strong military," which Putin "would hate."
"We [United States] are the most powerful country in the world and we are getting more and more powerful because I'm a big military person," Trump stated. "If Hillary had won, our military would be decimated."
Trump went on to say that he is also a supporter of fracking and other means to expand production of fossil fuels, reduce energy prices and make the United States an energy exporter.
"We're going to be exporting energy — he [Putin] doesn't want that. He would like Hillary where she wants to have windmills," the US president noted. "He would much rather have that [windmills] because energy prices would go up and Russia, as you know, relies very much on energy."
Trump’s comments came just days after the first bilateral meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
Trump and Putin met for more than 2 hours, and agreed to establish a new ceasefire in southern Syria.