Trump, Putin Meet for One-on-One Summit in Helsinki
President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down for their first official one-on-one summit on Monday amid questions of the extent to which the topic of Russian meddling in the 2016 election will be discussed.
“I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship. I hope so,” Trump told reporters as he sat down with Putin at the top of their meeting in Helsinki, Finland. Their summit is being held in the Gothic Hall at the presidential palace.
As he sat next to Putin, he said, “We are the two great nuclear powers. We have 90% of the nuclear [weapons] and that is not a good thing that is a bad thing, and hopefully we can do something about that, because it is not a positive force, it is a negative force.”
The summit is scheduled to last 90 minutes, but will include only translators. They will then have an expanded meeting and lunch with U.S. and Russian officials, followed by a press statement and perhaps a press conference. Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson are scheduled to interview Trump afterward, landing sit-downs with the president post-summit. Hannity’s interview will air first as the first exclusive. Fox News’ Chris Wallace will interview Putin.
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On Friday, after Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military officers on charges of conspiracy to hack the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Senate Democrats called on Trump to cancel the summit or include other officials in the talks.
Trump, though, continued to refer to Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt.” The topic was not discussed in their public remarks to reporters.
“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!,” Trump tweeted on Monday.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2018
His focus is much different than that of his director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, who on Friday warned of further Russian cyberattacks and those of other foreign actors. He noted the warnings that preceded 9/11, when “the system is blinking red. And here we are nearly two decades later, and I’m here to say, the warning lights are blinking red again.”
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