Poll-topping GOP presidential hopeful and billionaire businessman Donald Trump says he thinks he'd get along "very well" with prickly Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Turning a brief trip to the Women's British Open in Turnberry, Scotland
— where he owns a golf course
— into a campaign stop, Trump on Thursday described relations between the United States and Russia as "unbelievably bad."
"I think I would get along very well with Vladimir Putin," Trump said. "I just think so. People say, 'What do you mean?' I think I would get along well with him," Trump told reporters.
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"He hates [President Barack] Obama, Obama hates him. We have unbelievably bad relationships. Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. She was the worst secretary of state in the history of our country. The world blew apart during her reign. Now she wants to be president."
The United States and Russia have clashed on a number of international issues during Obama's tenure, including over Russia's 2014 incursion into Ukraine, which prompted the United States and its allies
to impose heavy sanctions against Russia.
Pressed to elaborate on what he admires about Putin, Trump shot back, "I didn't say I admire him," and declined to answer a follow-up question about which world leaders he did admire.
Trump also predicted he'd be "very close" with Britain and that the United States would have "such a great relationship with this part of the world and I think many other parts of the world,"
NBC News reports.
And he said he'd also be able to get along well with people from China.
"The problem we have is the people running China, Mexico, Japan, all of the leaders of those countries are much sharper, smarter, more cunning than our leaders and they're taking advantage of us," Trump said.
Trump, whose grandmother was born in Scotland, also weighed in on British politics, saying he hoped there wouldn't be another independence referendum in Scotland for 50 years because of the "bedlam and confusion" created by last year's vote.
And he warned he wasn't go to rein in his comments along the campaign trail, telling reporters, "We're so politically correct in our country that people are sick and tired of things not getting done."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.