"And when you got criticized for saying that Vladimir Putin is smart, we’ve had many conversations, and you’ve often quoted to me Sun Tzu, ‘The Art of War’: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

"Is that how you viewed Vladimir? Did you view Vladimir Putin and people like President Xi and Kim Jong Un and the Iranian mullahs as enemies that you needed to keep close?"

Sean Hannity asked Trump last night, quoted in "'I got along': Trump avoids criticizing Putin The former president had several opportunities during a Fox News interview to criticize the Russian leader's invasion of Ukraine, but didn't" (Politico).

Trump answered: "I got along with these people. I got along with them well. That doesn’t mean they are good people. It doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that I understood them and perhaps they understood me — maybe they understood me even better. That’s OK, because they knew there would be a big penalty.... Putin is for Russia, and you see what happened... And that is all because they didn’t respect our leader. Look, there was nobody, and Putin will tell you this — if he was telling the truth, and I am sure he has told it to all of his inner sanctum — nobody was tougher on Russia than me."