Trump: Russia Allegations 'A Total Deflection'
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DORAL (CBSMiami) -- Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took on allegations that Russia is helping his campaign Wednesday morning.
Trump stood in the Crystal Ballroom at the Trump National Doral, a little less than a week after he was nominated by the Republican party as their presidential candidate taking aim at the Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton first.
"It's been 235 days since crooked Hillary has had a press conference and you as reporters who give her glowing reports should ask yourselves why. Despite the platitudes, she's been a mess," said Trump. "The reason is because there is now way she can answer questions because the job she has done is so bad...It's going to be an extension of Obama, in my opinion, worse."
Just a day before, he spoke with CBS4's Jim DeFede during an exclusive interview in which he denied ties with the Russian government and Russian investors. All this amid allegations Russians are trying to influence the presidential election in Trump's favor.
"I can tell you I think if I came up with that they'd say, 'Oh, it's a conspiracy theory, it's ridiculous," Trump told DeFede on Tuesday.
The allegations came about after the recent hacking of the Democratic National Committee emails that showed they favored Clinton during the primaries - something that prompted Debbie Wasserman Shultz to resign as the chair of the party.
"You ought to check it out because there is a lot going on. Her great disloyalty to the person who rigged it for her – Debbie Wasserman Shultz. Bernie Sanders never had a chance," said Trump on Wednesday.
Trump went on to call on Russia to find the missing Clinton emails that were deleted or lost in the investigation into her private email server.
"Russia if you are listening, I hope you're able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing," said Trump.
He went on to say he hopes U.S. relations with Russia improve - including a relationship with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.
"I hope that we get along great with Putin," said Trump.
The Kremlin Wednesday morning said American politicians are making it up but U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly believe Russia's relation to the hack may be the case.
President Barack Obama spoke out about the hack for the first time saying "anything's possible" during an interview with NBC.
Meantime, the FBI is trying to determine how the documents - stolen months ago - appeared on Wikileaks on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.
Following Trump's speech Clinton's campaign issued a statement on the matter saying,
"This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent... This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue."
Click here for more on the exclusive interview with Donald Trump or Click here to read more about Campaign 2016