Russia will wait until 2023 for U.S. television host Bill O’Reilly to apologize for calling President Vladimir Putin “a killer,” the Kremlin has said.
Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday that the Russian government was "prepared to be patient." "We've made a mark on the calendar and will get back to it," he said.
The Kremlin first called on O'Reilly to apologize on Monday, after he called Putin a killer during an interview with U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday evening.
Peskov slammed the allegations as "unacceptable and offensive."
However, O'Reilly did not respond to the Kremlin's pleas, telling viewers on Monday night that he was "working on that apology, but it may take a little time." "[You] might want to check in with me around 2023," O'Reilly said.
Despite the Kremlin's supposed outrage by O'Reilly's allegations, U.S. President Trump has appeared unperturbed by the remarks. "There are a lot of killers," he told O'Reilly in the interview, which was aired on Sunday evening. "We've got a lot of killers. What do you think, our country's so innocent?"
It isn’t the first time that Trump has shrugged off allegations that Putin may have ordered the death of his political opponents.
The president gave a similar answer in 2015, when MSNBC host Joe Scarborough alleged that Putin killed "journalists that don’t agree with him.”
“Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe,” Trump replied.
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