Donald Trump: Vladimir Putin Is 'Not My Best Friend' | HuffPost Latest News

WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin is not my best friend, when he was asked whether he disapproves of Russias alleged interference in the U.S. election.

Trump, who once encouraged Russian hacking of Hillary Clintons emails, changed his tune at the final presidential debate on Wednesday, saying he condemns interference in the election by Russia or anybody else.

But Trump also repeated a claim hes made throughout the election season that he doesnt know Putin.

I dont know Putin, I never met Putin, he said.

That contradicts what the Republican nominee repeatedly said before he ran for president.

Here are four of Trumps previous statements, cited by PolitiFact :

When Thomas Roberts of MSNBC asked Trump, Do you have a relationship with Vladimir Putin? A conversational relationship or anything that you feel you have sway or influence over his government? Trump responded, I do have a relationship, and I can tell you that hes very interested in what were doing here today. Hes probably very interested in what you and I am saying today, and Im sure hes going to be seeing it in some form. interview , November, 2013
You know, I was in Moscow a couple of months ago. I own the Miss Universe Pageant and they treated me so great. Putin even sent me a present, a beautiful present. address at the CPAC conference , March 2014
Russia does not respect our country any longer. They see weve been greatly weakened, both militarily and otherwise, and he certainly does not respect President Obama. So what I would doas an example, I own Miss Universe, I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success. The show was live from Moscow, and we had tremendous success there and it was amazing, but to do well, you have to get the other side to respect you, and he does not respect our president, which is very sad. address at the National Press Club , May 2014
As far as the Ukraine is concerned if Putin wants to go in and I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes. We were stablemates, and we did very well that night. portion of an answer at the Fox Business News debate , Nov. 2015. (The notion that the two men appeared together on 60 Minutes has been debunked. As Time magazine put it succinctly, In fact, they werent even on the same continent.)

When Clinton was asked about a speech in which shed espoused a dream for a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders, she quickly pivoted to the source of that conversation, which was revealed by WikiLeaks.

Whats really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans, Clinton said. Will Donald Trump admit and condemn that the Russians are doing this?

Later in the debate, Clinton said Putin would rather have a puppet in the White House, appearing to refer to Trump. Youre the puppet, Trump shot back.

.@HillaryClinton describes @realDonaldTrump as \"puppet\" of President Putin in angry clash over Russia https://t.co/ks93L08ZRN #debate pic.twitter.com/1YQfFFtidW

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.@HillaryClinton describes @realDonaldTrump as "puppet" of President Putin in angry clash over Russia https://t.co/ks93L08ZRN #debate pic.twitter.com/1YQfFFtidW
BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) October 20, 2016

WikiLeaks has taken on a surprisingly influential role in the 2016 election. The platforms founder and editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, will not reveal his sources , and its unknown whether they may be associated with Russia. But the Obama administration has blamed Russia for hacking into the Democratic National Committee, which saw thousands of embarrassing internal emails released on the whistleblowing platform.

While Assange claims not to have an affinity for either presidential candidate he has compared them to having a choice between cholera or gonorrhea his leaks overwhelmingly focus on Clinton. WikiLeaks began publishing hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta earlier this month. Podesta contends Russian intelligence officials hacked into his email to move the election in favor of Trump.

The Podesta emails have created headaches for the Clinton campaign, but no truly damning revelations. Excerpts from Clintons paid speeches to Wall Street appended to one email revealed a candidate at ease with an elite crowd who was not above flattering potential donors, but who also did not offer any political favors. In another email thread, Clinton resisted calls from advisers to cancel a paid 2015 speech by her husband to Morgan Stanley, before eventually taking her teams political advice. They show the Clinton camp struggling over whether to support tougher financial regulations and agonizing about what position to take on President Barack Obama s free trade agenda. (She would ultimately oppose both.)

WikiLeaks has dogged Clintons campaign to the point of openly fueling conspiracy theories. In September, the outlet tweeted and subsequently deleted a poll asking users to speculate whether Clintons stumble was due to Parkinsons or allergies & personality.

Trump supporters have started rooting for WikiLeaks as a kind of secret weapon that might save their fumbling candidate. Trump political adviser Roger Stone has called Assange my hero . Fox News hosts, not traditionally fans of WikiLeaks, have praised its disclosures about Clinton.

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Not all Republicans are comfortable with the cozy relationship thats developing between WikiLeaks and ultra-conservatives. I want to warn my fellow Republicans who may want to capitalize politically on these leaks, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said this week . Today it is the Democrats. Tomorrow it could be us.

Nick Baumann contributed reporting.

This story has been updated with additional information about the hacked Clinton emails.

Editors note: Donald Trump regularlyincitespolitical violence and is a