‘US Democratic Party forgot what its name means’ – Putin
The US Democratic Party has forgotten the original meaning of its name in allowing the use of administrative resources in the presidential race, which it still lost to Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at his annual Q&A session.
“It is evident that the current ruling party, which is called ‘Democratic’, has blatantly forgotten the original definition of its name, taking into account the unscrupulous use of administrative resources and appeals to the Electoral College not to concede to the will of the voters’ decision,” Putin said.
According to the President, calls to electors to vote against president-elect Trump were “a step towards the division of the nation.”
He expressed hope that American society will “draw conclusions” from this year’s race and such violations won’t repeat themselves in the next election.
Putin praised Trump's victory despite all odds being against the Republican candidate.
“I think [Ronald] Reagan [40th US president from 1981 to 1989] would’ve been glad to see representatives of his party winning everywhere," he told journalists.
"And he would have been happy for the newly-elected president, who was sensitive enough to feel the moods of society and worked exactly within that paradigm, going to the very end, though nobody, except you and I believed in his victory," the head of state added.
Putin said that Trump’s win indicates that “there is a significant gap in the definition of what is good and bad in the understanding of the elites and general public” in America.
He said that the Democratic Party lost not only the presidential election, but also the vote for the House, where the Republicans have a majority, and Congress where the Republicans also have a majority.
“Is this our doing too?” Putin said, referring to “the attempts of the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership to blame all their failures on external factors,” including Russian influence.
The top Democratic politicians of the past, like Franklin Roosevelt, “would have surely turned in their graves” due to the current performance of their party, Putin said.
“Roosevelt was a renowned figure in global and American history, who united the nation in the most difficult times, during the Great Depression of the late 1930s and World War II,” he said, adding that “the current administration is dividing it," he said.
“This shows that there are systematic problems in the current administration,” he said. Putin stressed that "as far as democracy is concerned … there are problems” in modern America.
Question from Russia Today. "Americans always say that democracy is great, but now they don't like it after their election? What happened?"
— max seddon (@maxseddon) December 23, 2016
“We've long been talking about that, but our US partners always brushed that aside. The archaic election system of the US is the No.1 problem," he said.
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“The head of state is not elected directly by secret ballot. The voters first form an Electoral College, whose members then name the president," Putin said.
He agreed with Trump’s evaluation that relations between Washington and Moscow reached their lowest point under Barack Obama.
“Trump said during the election campaign that he believed it was right to normalize Russian-US relations and said that it couldn’t get worse because [they] were worse than ever. I agree with him. We’ll think together how to make [bilateral relations] better," Putin said.
The Russian leader added that he is willing to travel to the US if Trump, who is inaugurated in January will invite him.
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However, Putin did not state any potential dates for his possible meeting with the his American counterpart, saying "it's difficult to say now, first the US president-elect of has to take the time to put together his future cabinet.
