Extraordinary

The Guardian reveals the contradictions in Trump's assessments of Putin:

Donald Trump has spoken, sometimes gushingly, about Vladimir Putin on more than 80 occasions in the past few years. Putin has been far more tight-lipped with just a few references to Trump

“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?” June 2013

“I do have a relationship with him” November 2013

“When I went to Russia with the Miss Universe pageant, [Putin] contacted me and was so nice” February 2014

“He could not have been nicer. He was so nice and so everything. But you have to give him credit that what he’s doing for that country in terms of their world prestige is very strong” April 2014

“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” May 2014

“Putin is a nicer person than I am” September 2015

“I will tell you that I think in terms of leadership [Putin] is getting an A, and our president is not doing so well” September 2015

“Yes [we met], a long time ago. We got along great, by the way” October 2015

“I think the biggest thing we have is that we were on 60 Minutes together and we had fantastic ratings. One of your best-rated shows in a long time … So we were stablemates” October 2015

“I have no relationship with him other than he called me a genius” February 2016

“I never met Putin. I don’t know who Putin is. He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius. I said thank you very much to the newspaper and that was the end of it. I never met Putin” July 2016

“There are a lot of killers … Do you think our country is so innocent? Do you think our country is so innocent?” February 2017

“And I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia. President Putin called me up very nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election” February 2017