Rep. Collins: 'You can’t compare Russia to the U.S.'

President Donald Trump’s earliest Capitol Hill supporter struggled Monday to defend the commander in chief’s warm rhetoric toward Russia and its authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin.

In fact, he admitted that Trump’s dialogue was tough to follow and blamed a Fox News host for what he called a “gotcha” interview with the president.


Trump, in an interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly broadcast Sunday during pre-game Super Bowl coverage, said he respects the Russian president and portrayed the Kremlin as a potential ally in the fight against the Islamic State. But, after being told that Putin is “a killer,” he also suggested the U.S. isn’t “so innocent.”

America, the president said, has “a lot of killers.” “You think our country’s so innocent?” he asked.

New York Rep. Chris Collins, who appeared on CNN on Monday morning to defend the president, couldn’t identify the so-called killers Trump referred to.

“I really don’t have any comment to make on that part of it because within that context, I did not totally follow it,” conceded Collins, co-chair of the Trump House Leadership Committee. “I can’t speak for what the president is thinking in the back of his mind when he said those words.”

Collins initially said he wasn’t comfortable with where the interview went “as reported by the press,” prompting CNN’s Alisyn Camerota to remind the GOP congressman that the topic of discussion wasn’t some “fake news” report, but rather a video clip of an interview with the president.

“Yeah, I would not have used those words,” Collins said. “But I think in context what we keep seeing is President Trump’s gonna attempt to work with any and all world leaders to defeat ISIS.”

Collins agreed that perhaps Trump was referencing U.S. military action but pushed back when asked whether he was suggesting that military leaders who seek out terrorists are killers.

“It certainly is true that our military, you know, does take out terrorists using drones and other means. But certainly not on U.S. soil, which is what, you know, certainly most people acknowledge Russia has been doing to their political opponents,” he said. “So you can’t compare Russia to the U.S., at least on that basis.”

Collins’ position was directly at odds with Trump, who seemed to suggest a moral equivalence between the U.S. and Russia. But Collins faulted the media for pressing Trump on an issue he may not know much about.

“I think it’s the aggressive press we have that does try to push President Trump, you know, into an area where maybe he will say something that then they’ll just jump on,” said Collins, who added that “there’s a gotcha piece in every interview that the press has more or less with President Trump.”

“There are some things that the president in the context that he was thinking of it may be different from you and I, but again, what he’s doing is putting America first, trying to make America safe, and he’s getting pushed every which way you can,” he said.