then-candidate Donald Trump. Trump was running against, and ultimately defeated Hillary Clinton, wife of former president Bill Clinton. Zhirinovsky had voiced his personal distain for both Clintons since the early 1990s. Zhirinovsky's support of Trump was due to the fact that, in Russia, Trump was often compared with Zhirinovsky, mainly because of the similarity of their style of performance. Zhirinovsky said that he hoped to improve relations between the US and Russia if Trump became President. Zhirinovsky promised that, in the case of a Trump victory, he would drink champagne for him. After the victory of Donald Trump in the election, the Liberal Democratic Party organized a celebratory banquet for 100 thousand rubles (US$1.5 thousand). However, after the US missile strike on Syria in April 2017, Zhirinovsky said that Trump's foreign policy does not match the one for which his voters voted, and declared that he would drink champagne to celebrate a Trump impeachment. By the end of Trump's presidency, Zhirinovsky had soured on him.