MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Friday, Putin said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that Trump's team was effective during the election campaign, even though it seemed that Trump himself "was exaggerating." Putin added that this attitude eventually allowed the new US president to gain the trust of the voters and win the election.
"It was absolutely clearly from the context. He talked about the election campaign… The president meant here that the internal energy of then-candidate Trump was certainly different from the internal energy of other candidates. And, as the election outcome showed, the US voters appeared to like it. This is what Putin was talking about," Peskov explained.
On November 8, 2016, then-Republican nominee Trump won against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election. The candidate's stance was characterized by harsh views on a number of issues in the sphere of immigration, as well as the United States' membership of treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
