Fox News host Sean Hannity praised President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE's performance at a controversial news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, saying the U.S. leader was "very strong."

The Fox News host, a close friend of Trump and one of the president's most ardent media defenders, said that Trump was right to home in on questions about the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) handling of a 2016 cyberattack and the since-closed investigation into Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonDemocratic groups using Bloomberg money to launch M in Spanish language ads in Florida The Hill's Campaign Report: Presidential polls tighten weeks out from Election Day More than 50 Latino faith leaders endorse Biden MORE's use of a private email server.

ADVERTISEMENT

"You were very strong at the end of that press conference," Hannity said in Trump's first interview following the press conference. "You said: 'Where are the servers? What about what Peter Strzok says? Where are the 33,000 emails?' "

During the press conference, which came just after Trump held a highly anticipated summit with Putin, the president challenged the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

The comments amounted to an extraordinary break from Trump's own Justice Department, which indicted 12 Russian officials days earlier for allegedly hacking Democratic servers during the 2016 campaign.

Trump also sought to focus attention on the DNC's handling of the FBI's initial warning in 2016 that its server had been compromised by hackers and why 33,000 emails had been deleted from Clinton's email server as her email use became the subject of a federal investigation.

In fact, thousands of those emails were later recovered. The FBI later concluded that Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of classified information, but ultimately declined to charge her with a crime.