Fox News’ Chris Wallace interviewed Vladimir Putin on Monday, and asked a stunning question of the Russian President after his stunning press conference with Donald Trump: do you have compromising material on the United States president?

After confronting Putin with Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s indictments of Russian officials on charges of election meddling (Putin denied interference), Wallace asked about this morning’s presser.

“I thought the news conference today — in my opinion — was a bit curious,” Wallace said. “President Trump spent more time criticizing the Democrats and asking about the Democratic server than he did in criticizing Russia and asking about the GRU.”

“There are many theories in the United States about why President Trump is so reluctant to criticize you, and I’d like to ask you about a couple of them,” Wallace continued. “One is that you have something on him, kompromat. The other is that, as a skilled politician and a former KGB officer, you know how to play him. You use phrases like ‘fake news’ and ‘deep state.’

“And my question is: do you find President Trump easy to deal with?” the Fox News host asked.

Putin explained the friendly press conference by noting that he did not want to insult Trump during the diplomatic efforts.

He then said that Russia has no “kompromat” on Trump — because when the now-president visited Russia in 2015, he “was of no interest” to the Kremlin.

“We don’t have anything on them, and there can’t be anything on them,” he said. “I don’t want to insult President Trump when I say this — and I may come as rude — but before he announced that he will run for presidency, he was of no interest for us. He was a rich person, but, well, there’s plenty of rich persons in the United States. He was in the construction business. He organized the beauty pageants. But no, it would never occur to anyone that he would think of running for president. He never mentioned his political ambitions. It sounds like it’s utter nonsense.”

He added that the Kremlin doesn’t have the means to surveil everyone that comes to the Russia.

“Just imagine this in the press conference — St. Petersburg Economic Forum was visited by 500 businessmen. Pretty much every one of them is a major industrial tycoon of greater scale than President Trump. Do you think that our Special Services actually organized surveillance on each and every of them? Well, unlike you, unlike the United States, we don’t do this. We don’t have enough resources. We don’t have enough manpower to organize the total state of control. That’s not part of our plans. And it’s clear that we did nothing of that kind of against Mr. Trump.”

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

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