Trump boasted of getting on with strongmen like Putin and Erdogan better 'the tougher and meaner they are' in new audio

• Bob Woodward released new audio of his interviews with Donald Trump.
• In one clip, Trump said he likes leaders better "the tougher and meaner they are."

Former President Donald Trump praised the strongmen presidents of North Korea, Russia, and Turkey and said he got on better with world leaders "the tougher and meaner they are" in newly released audio.

CNN on Tuesday published audio from interviews between veteran journalist Bob Woodward and Trump that were conducted for his 2020 book, "Fear" but never published, and are now being released as an audiobook.

In one excerpt, Trump described his admiration for authoritarian strongmen including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, and North Korean President Kim Jong Un.

"I like Putin. Our relationship should be a very good one. I campaigned on getting along with Russia, China and everyone else," Trump said in a January 2020 interview.

"Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing, all right? Especially because they have 1,332 nuclear fucking warheads."

Trump noted in the interviews that he had better relationships with leaders "the tougher and meaner they are."

"I get along very well with Erdoğan, even though you're not supposed to because everyone says what a horrible guy. But you know for me it works out good," Trump said in a January 2020 interview.

"It's funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them. You know?" he continued.

"Explain that to me someday, okay. But maybe it's not a bad thing. The easy ones are the ones I maybe don't like as much or don't get along with as much."

Trump has long attracted controversy for praising leaders such as Putin.

He notoriously sided with the Russian leader against his own security agencies at a summit in Helsinki in 2018 where he declared he doubted Russia had interfered in the 2016 election.

He organised a series of summits with Kim during his presidency from which the US extracted few meaningful diplomatic wins, and boasted to Woodward of the letters he received from the dictator.

Fiona Hill, a former Russia advisor in the Trump administration, has said that in seeking to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, Trump was likely seeking to emulate the authoritarian leaders he admired.

Despite expressing admiration for them, Trump claims to have taken a tough line with leaders such as Putin and Kim while in office.