“It did look very friendly, I must say,” Trump noted about the interaction, eliciting laughter from those in attendance. “I didn’t realize how friendly it looked. I saw it on [Fox News], just a little while ago before I came in and I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people that like each other,’ and we probably do.”
“We have little different philosophies, but we probably do. We just got along, but I got along with just about everybody,” Trump added. The president-elect had Obama to his right, and his wife, Melania, on his left.
At the Thursday evening Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump also mentioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to meet” and that the pair are in the process of “setting it up.”
“President Putin wants to meet. He has said that even publicly, and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” Trump said about the Russia-Ukraine war.
Putin met with President Joe Biden just once during his term, in June 2021 during a Russia-U.S. summit; Russia invaded Ukraine roughly a half year later. Trump met with Putin several times during his first term as president and drew controversy for speaking with him numerous times in private.
If Trump and Putin meet again, the Ukraine War would be a top issue. Trump previously said he would be able to negotiate with Putin to end the war.
Trump also touched on his hush money case sentencing, which the Supreme Court ruled late Thursday will go forward on Friday.
“Well, they called for an appeal. … They acknowledge what the judge said about no penalty, but we’re going to appeal anyway just psychologically because frankly, it’s a disgrace,” Trump said while conceding the high court’s ruling was a “fair decision.”
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“It’s a judge that shouldn’t been on the case; he’s a highly conflicted judge,” he said. “They called for an appeal, so I read it and I thought it was a fair decision, actually. So I’ll do my little thing tomorrow. They can have fun with their political opponent.”
Trump then lamented his gag order, saying, “They ought to find out what that’s all about.”
