Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE said Wednesday he doesn't know Russian President Vladimir Putin, contradicting a claim he made last year that he knows the leader "very well."

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“I never met Putin. I don’t know who Putin is,” the GOP presidential nominee said at a press conference in Doral, Fla.

"He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius," Trump continued.

"I said thank you very much to the newspaper, and that was the end of it. I never met Putin."

Throughout the news conference, Trump reiterated that he would rather have a working relationship with Russia to defeat terrorists.

"I would treat Vladimir Putin firmly, but there’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather do then have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now so that we can knock out ISIS [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] together with other people and with other countries."

His Wednesday comments dispute what the Republican presidential nominee said in November of last year at a debate, when Trump said he knows Putin because they were both on an episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes”

“I got to know him very well because we were both on ’60 Minutes,’ we were stablemates,” Trump said, according to Time magazine. “We did well that night.”

Trump was discussing Putin in the context of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) email scandal.

Emails released by WikiLeaks last week showed top officials at the DNC apparently planning how to undermine Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersNYT editorial board remembers Ginsburg: She 'will forever have two legacies' Two GOP governors urge Republicans to hold off on Supreme Court nominee Sanders knocks McConnell: He's going against Ginsburg's 'dying wishes' MORE's primary campaign against Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE.

Several news outlets reported that evidence links the hack to Russia, possibly in an effort to bolster Trump’s presidential campaign, and President Obama on Tuesday acknowledged the possibility.