During a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) rally before the midterm elections, Trump announced that he could win in a boxing match against the Russian president while slamming the “fake news” media.

During his rally in Minnesota the US president said that he would do “very well” in a hypothetical boxing showdown between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin, referring to the way the media had portrayed the meeting between two presidents.

“They want me to get into a boxing match with him. And I think I’d do very well,” Trump said.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) 5 октября 2018 г.

The US president then continued his criticism of the “fake news” media to the cheering crowd of supporters: “They said with Russia ‘he was too nice, he was too nice!’ With North Korea, they said ‘he was too tough, he was too tough’ And let me tell you, if I was really rough with Russia, they’d say ‘he was too tough, he was too tough’ — these people are ‘loco’ I’m telling you. They are fake!”

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During a joint press conference with the Russian president, Trump had said that relations between the US and Russia are strong and that he trusts Putin’s statement that Russia wasn't in any way involved in the 2016 US presidential elections. The Russian president also denied that he had any compromising material on Trump and presented the US leader with a football from the 2018 World Cup in Russia.