“I tell you he’s the best American president. Why? Not because his policies are good, but because he’s the most transparent president,” Assad said in a state television interview, according to a translation of his remarks by NBC News.

“All American presidents commit crimes and end up taking the Nobel Prize and appear as a defender of human rights and the ‘unique’ and ‘brilliant’ American or Western principles,” he continued, “but all they are is a group of criminals who only represent the interests of the American lobbies of large corporations in weapons, oil and others.”

Assad asserted that Trump, however, “speaks with transparency to say, ‘We want the oil,’” adding: “What do we want more than a transparent foe?”