Donald Trump claims Putin would have preferred if Hillary Clinton was president

Federal investigators are probing whether Trump campaign advisers colluded with the Russian government to help him win the 2016 election

People gather outside the White House in Washington (AP)

Donald Trump has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have preferred if Hillary Clinton was in the White House, as she would not have spent as much as he intends to on the US military.

Mr Trump made these statements as federal investigators probe whether Trump campaign advisers colluded with the Russian government to help him win the 2016 US election, and amid a growing scandal around an undisclosed meeting between his eldest son, Donald Jr, and a Russian lawyer last year.

While US intelligence agencies have repeatedly confirmed that there is no question that Russia interfered in the presidential race, Mr Trump said last week that “nobody really knows” who meddled in the election.

“So, it was Russia, and I think it was probably others also,” he said during a news conference in Poland.

In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Mr Trump declared that he thinks he and Mr Putin “get along very, very well.”

“We are a tremendously powerful nuclear power, and so are they. It doesn't make sense not to have some kind of relationship,” the US leader added.

The pair met in Hamburg, Germany last week during the G20 summit, where they had a more than two-hour-long meeting that Mr Trump said demonstrated Russia and the US could work together on issues like the ceasefire in Syria.

The ceasefire brokered by the US, Russia and Jordan began in southwest Syria on Sunday, in the latest attempt at international peacemaking during the six-year civil war.

Taking a swipe at Ms Clinton, Mr Trump also told CBN that Mr Putin would have preferred his election opponent as US president.

“[I]f Hillary had won, our military would be decimated,” Mr Trump said. “Our energy would be much more expensive. That's what Putin doesn't like about me. And that's why I say, why would he want me?”

“We're going to be exporting energy – he doesn't want that. He would like Hillary where she wants to have windmills. He would much rather have that because energy prices would go up and Russia as you know relies very much on energy.”

Oil prices have actually been relatively low in recent years, partially as the result of an international supply glut.

Mr Trump has proposed a federal budget that would increase military spending by about $469bn through 2027 while cutting welfare, Medicaid and other ­social safety nets in an attempt to wipe out the federal deficit

In another interview, Mr Trump said he did not fault his son Donald Trump Jr for meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential election campaign and that he was unaware of the meeting until a few days ago.

Asked if he knew that his son was meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in June last year, the president told Reuters in a White House interview: “œNo, that I didn't know until a couple of days ago when I heard about this.”

Mr Trump Jr eagerly agreed to meet the woman he was told was a Russian government lawyer who might have damaging information about Ms Clinton, according to emails the son released on Tuesday.

Seated at his Oval Office desk, Mr Trump said he did not fault his son for holding the meeting, writing it off as a decision made in the heat of an upstart, non-traditional campaign.

The emails about the meeting – released by Mr Trump Jr earlier this week – are the most concrete evidence that Trump campaign officials might have been willing to accept Russian help to win the presidential election, a subject that has cast a cloud over Mr Trump's presidency and prompted the investigations by the US Justice Department and Congress.

“I think many people would have held that meeting,” Mr Trump said.

“It was a 20-minute meeting, I guess, from what I'™m hearing,” Mr Trump said. “Many people, and many political pros, said everybody would do that.”

Mr Trump Jr, in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, said: “In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently.”

As in the past, President Trump said there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

“There was zero coordination. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” he said.

Agencies contributed to this report