Donald Trump said the same people who blame Russia also accuse him of being friendly with Vladimir Putin, though both men have praised each other. | Getty Trump: 'What the hell do I have to do with Putin?'

Donald Trump repeatedly invoked the latest WikiLeaks hack of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails during a Florida rally.

At the same time, though, he pushed back on his cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.


“One of the big advantages of me having a rather large microphone, meaning a lot of people are listening, is that I can talk about WikiLeaks and look, it’s on all the television networks live. We’re live,” Trump told the Ocala crowd, although Fox News was the only network carrying his rally live at the time.

Trump highlighted a range of issues exposed in the hack of Podesta’s personal email account, which the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are investigating. While the Clinton campaign has declined to verify the authenticity of the emails, Clinton’s camp has suggested the document dumps are a result of Russia trying to boost Trump into the White House.

“You ever notice anything that goes wrong, they blame Russia? ‘Russia did it,’” Trump said at his rally. “They have no idea. We’re being hacked because we have people that don’t know what they’re doing.”

Trump said the same people who blame Russia also accuse him of being friendly with Putin, though both men have praised each other. For his part, Trump promised supporters that he doesn’t even know the Russian strongman — despite remarking in a November GOP primary debate, “I got to know him very well because we were both on ’60 Minutes,’ we were stablemates and we did very well that night.”

“But they always blame Russia. And then they say, ‘Donald Trump is friends with Putin,’” Trump continued Wednesday. “I don’t know Putin, folks. I promise I don’t know Putin. What the hell do I have to do with Putin? These people are professional con people.”