Vladimir Putin 'wanted Hillary Clinton, not me' as US president claims Donald Trump

Donald Trump has claimed Vladimir Putin would have preferred Hillary Clinton to win the White House.

The US president was speaking with Pat Robertson on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) as accusations continue over his son's meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer to get damaging information on the former Democrat election contender.

Trump said: "Why would he (Putin) want me because from day one I wanted a strong military, he doesn't want to see that, and from day one I want fracking and everything else to get energy prices low and to create tremendous energy.

"We're going to be self-supporting, we just about are now, we're going to be exporting energy. (Putin) doesn't want that, he would like Hillary where she wants to have windmills, he would much rather have that," the president said in an interview to be broadcast on Thursday (13 July).

In his conversational style, Trump claimed that his interest in military spending and energy independence for the US would in fact be anathema to Putin and his interests.

US intelligence agencies have previously said that they believe the top levels of Russia's government ordered attempts to influence the US election in Trump's favour.

"There are many things that I do that are the exact opposite of what he would want so when I keep hearing about that 'he would have rather had Trump' I think probably not because when I want a strong military - you know she (Clinton) wouldn't have spent the money on the military.

"But when I want a strong military, when I want tremendous energy - we're opening up coal, we're opening up natural gas, we're opening up fracking - all the things that he would hate, but nobody ever mentions that." Trump said in a clip released by CBN.

Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr, has been making headlines in the last few days after emails which he later published on Twitter showed him seemingly arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer who was purported to have damaging information on Clinton.