Arizona Sen. John McCain says GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump's accolades for Russian President Vladimir Putin only serve as propaganda for a man who has murdered journalists and political opponents.
"The thing that is so concerning about Mr. Trump's compliments of Vladimir Putin is Vladimir Putin has slaughtered his own, murdered his own people, including people I knew," McCain told Concord News Radio in a weekend interview.
"His equipment has shot down an airliner and killed a couple hundred people," McCain said. "He's a bully and thug and to pay a compliment to this KGB apparatchik murderer is something that I just can’t find in any way plausible.
McCain's comments come after Putin complimented Trump last week, and Trump responded it was an
"honor" to receive the compliment.
When critics pointed out that Putin kills his adversaries, including journalists, Trump challenged that, saying that has never been proved.
McCain has been at odds with Trump in the past, with Trump questioning McCain's war hero status. McCain spent more than five years in the notorious "Hanoi Hilton," a North Vietnamese prison where he was tortured.
"I like people who weren't captured," Trump said of McCain in July.
McCain brushed aside Trump's criticism of himself, but told Concord News Radio that his praise for Putin "shows either profound ignorance or an attitude that contradicts everything about the United States of America.
"For him to provide propaganda, which is really what he just did for Vladimir Putin — who is a thug and a murderer — I think is really astonishing," McCain said. "Look, Vladimir Putin murdered his major adversary Boris Nemtsov in the shadow of the Kremlin. Murdered him. Which was clearly recorded on surveillance, but surveillance we'll never see."