Russian President Vladimir Putin mocked conspiracy theories linking President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and his own government, asking NBC News’ Megyn Kelly whether Americans had “all lost your senses over there.”
In the interview, marking the inaugural episode of NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, Putin faced a barrage of questions covering every aspect of the various allegations that Democrats and the media have made.
He dismissed any notion that he had a close relationship with former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and mocked the idea that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had nefarious dealings through the Russian ambassador:
For me, this is just amazing. You created a sensation out of nothing. And out of this sensation, you turned it into a weapon of war against the current president. Well, this is, you know, you’re just, you people are so creative over there. Good job. Your lives must be boring.
Later, the mockery became more intense:
Kelly: There have been questions in America about Donald Trump’s finances. He hasn’t released his tax returns. There have been questions about this secret Russian dossier, which he says is fake, but which purports to have blackmail information in it generated by the Russians. There have been questions about the communications between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. All of which has Americans asking, “Do you have something damaging on our president?”
Putin: Well, this is just another load of nonsense. Where would we get this information from? Why, did we have some special relationship with him? We didn’t have any relationship at all. There was a time when he used to come to Moscow. But you know, I never met with him. We have a lot of Americans who visit us. Right now, I think we have representatives from a hundred American companies that have come to Russia. Do you think we’re gathering compromising information on all of them right now or something? Are you all, have you all lost your senses over there?
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.