(CNN) During his recent trip to the G20 summit in Japan, President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a photo op before the meeting, Trump said this to Putin in reference to the assembled press: "Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn't it? You don't have this problem in Russia but we do." Responded Putin: "We also have. It's the same."

Ah ha ha ha ha. Actually not. At all. Because Putin's government has a long history of cracking down on journalists who aren't willing to toe Putin's preferred line on, well, everything. Investigative journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested last month on drug charges -- which he insists were made up -- after a series of reports detailing corruption within Russian government. (An ambulance doctor who examined Golunov said that the reporter had a concussion, bruising and possible broken ribs.) Last April , investigative reporter Maxim Borodin died after falling from his fifth story apartment . (Russian officials did not pursue a criminal inquiry of Borodin's death.)

"Russia has a record of brushing aside suspicious deaths of members of the press," said Nina Ognianova, a program coordinator with the Committee to Protect Journalists, at the time. "We urge authorities on both the regional and federal level to consider that Borodin may have been attacked and that his investigative journalism was the motive."

Trump's comments to Putin -- "you don't have this problem in Russia" -- seem to overlook the violence with which Russia deals with reporters who don't write what the government wants. And this is far from the only time that Trump has praised the power (and methods of retaining that power) of rogue dictators and authoritarian rulers. FAR from it.

Consider this: