President Donald Trump defied critics of his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and said he would hold a second face-to-face with the Russian leader.
The White House said later that plans are in the works for Putin to come to Washington in the fall.
‘Those discussions are already under way,’ she said.
Trump continued to insist on Thursday in tweets that his first summit with Putin was a ‘great success’ as he branded the media the ‘real enemy of the people.’
‘I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear,’ he said, ‘proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace, North Korea and more.’
The president assessed, ‘There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems…but they can ALL be solved!’
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that a second meeting was in the works hours later on Twitter.
‘In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs. President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway,’ she said.
President Donald Trump defied critics of his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and previewed a second face-to-face with the Russian leader
PALS: First Lady Melania Trump poses with Presidents Putin and Trump after a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Finland
Trump continued to insist in Thursday tweets that his first summit with Putin was a ‘great success’ as he branded the media the ‘real enemy of the people’
A face-to-face with Putin could come on the sidelines on the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Putin did not make the trip to the U.S. last year to participate in the meeting that’s held annually in New York but could have a change in position this year as a result of Trump’s outreach.
President Trump has also said that President Putin would be welcome in Washington. The Kremlin said that Trump suggested they could have a White House summit in a March 20 call.
The two presidents are sure to see each other again in November at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Trump and Putin met for the first time at last year’s meeting in Hamburg, Germany.
On Thursday officials at the White House did not respond to requests for clarification on the president’s assertion that he and Putin would meet for a second time.
If the topic came up in Trump’s one-on-one with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, only the president and his translator would know on the U.S. side. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that she was not aware of a recording of the 135-minute meeting. A stenographer was not in the room at the time.
Trump’s administration has been engulfed in a political firestorm since the Monday meeting with Putin. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and the media have been deriding Trump’s news conference with the Russian leader that took place in Helsinki.
The president used his favorite form of attack on the press again on Thursday, calling them ‘the fake news media’ to complain that the coverage is ‘total fiction.’
President Trump and his administration remain engulfed in the political firestorm that followed a joint news conference with Putin in Helsinki, Finland
‘The Fake News Media is going Crazy! They make up stories without any backup, sources or proof. Many of the stories written about me, and the good people surrounding me, are total fiction. Problem is, when you complain you just give them more publicity. But I’ll complain anyway!,’ he wrote on Twitter.
He did not specific any particular news story or report.
In another tweet he is charging the media with preferring to go to war instead of him having a good relationship with Putin.
‘The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war. They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I’ll probably have a good relationship with Putin. We are doing MUCH better than any other country!,’ he wrote.
The White House has inundated with a flood of bad press, tweets criticizing them from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and the intelligence community, plus a statement from their own Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, countering his boss, the president.
The siege resulted from the president appearing deferential to his Russian counterpart during their press conference in Helsinki.
The president and his staff have attempted to walk back and clarify his comments numerous times since his return to the White House Monday evening.
But one member of Team Trump, FBI Director Christopher Wray, hinted that he contemplated resigning over disagreements with the president.
Speaking at a security conference in Aspen, Wray publicly repeated his view that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
‘My view has not changed, which is that Russia attempted to interfere with the last election and that it continues to engage in malign influence operations to this day,’ Wray said in an interview with Lester Holt of NBC News.
Trump attacked the media in a twitter rant on Thursday morning
He charged the media with wanting war with Russia
He thanked his favorite morning show ‘Fox & Friends,’ of which he is a faithful viewer
It’s unclear what Trump meant by a ‘second meeting’ – whether a one-on-one or a future gathering of world leaders
Holt asked Wray about reports from early this year that he threatened to resign after Attorney General Jeff Sessions pressured him to fire FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
‘I’m a low-key, understated guy, but that should not be mistaken for what my spine is made out of. I’ll just leave it at that,’ Wray said.
In his early morning rant against the media, Trump did praise one news outlet – Fox News and its morning show ‘Fox & Friends,’ of which he is a faithful viewer.
‘Trump recognized Russian Meddling MANY TIMES.’ Thank you to @foxandfriends and @FoxNews for actually showing the clips. The Fake News wants no part of that narrative! Too bad they don’t want to focus on all of the ECONOMIC and JOBS records being set,’ he noted Thursday.
The cable news morning show had played clips of the president’s interview with CBS anchor Jeff Glor where Trump took a much tougher line on Putin.
The president stated without hedging that Russia meddled in the election, although on Tuesday he raised the possibility someone else also could have been hacking.
‘You say you agree with U.S. intelligence that Russia meddled in the election in 2016,’ Glor asked him.
The president told CBS News Wednesday he took a tough stance with Putin in Helsinki
FBI director Christopher Wray hinted he’s considered resigning over disagreements with President Trump
‘Yeah and I’ve said that before, Jeff. I have said that numerous times before, and I would say that is true, yeah.’
Trump also went after former top intelligence officials when asked if they were ‘out to get you.’
‘Well certainly in the past it’s been terrible. You look at [former CIA Director John] Brenna, you look at [former DNI James] Clapper, you look at [former NSA chief Michael] Hayden,’ Trump began.
Then he listed former FBI director James Comey, former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, FBI lawyer Peter Strzrok and ‘his lover, Lisa Page.’
‘You look at other people in the FBI that have been fired that are no longer there,’ Trump said.
The White House itself has gone back and forth on what Trump said and what he meant since Monday’s press conference, where he agreed with Putin’s denial that Russia interfered in the 2016 election over the assessments from U.S. intelligence agencies that Moscow meddled in the presidential contest.
Trump himself has given several interviews at different times in the wake of the press conference. He gave interviews to Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson in Helsinki shortly after the press conference ended.
While Hannity’s aired Monday night, Carlson’s didn’t air until Tuesday, after Trump spoke to the media in an attempt to clarify what he said in his press conference.
The president also spoke to CBS News on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the president gave an on-camera statement to the press where he said accepts his intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled in the election and noted he meant to say in his press conference that he had no reason to doubt the professionals within his administration.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders used her briefing Wednesday to criticize the media
Trump himself has given several interviews since Monday’s press conference
‘I accept our intelligence community conclusion that Russian meddling in the 2016 election took place,’ Trump said. ‘Could be other people also, a lot of people out there,’ he added. ‘There’s no collusion at all.’
Trump said he was surprised by the firestorm that awaited him when he arrived on Monday in Washington and realized he needed to ‘clear up’ his comments after reviewing the transcript of his presser with Putin. The president said that he has the ‘greatest respect’ for his intelligence chiefs.
‘The sentence should have been, I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’ Trump said. ‘So you can put that in. I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.’
Trump stressed in 15 minutes of remarks that he did not mean to give Putin a pass for election hacking. In fact, he said, unlike his predecessor, ‘who totally buried it,’ his administration, by contrast, ‘has taken a very firm stance’ against Russia’s bad behavior.
The confusion continued on Wednesday, when at a cabinet meeting amid shouting as the press was being escorted out of the room, the president was asked whether he believes Russia is still targeting the U.S. He said: ‘Thank you very much. No.’
The media reported what the president said.
President Trump spoke to Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson on Monday after his press conference but the interview didn’t air until Tuesday, after Trump clarified his remarks to Putin
The White House itself has gone back and forth on what Trump said and what he meant since Monday’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin
But later in the day, at her briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Trump wasn’t answering that question; he was saying ‘no’ to further questions.
‘I got a chance to speak with the President after his comments, and the President was — said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and was saying ‘no’ to answering questions,’ she said.
Sanders also used her briefing to attack the meeting.
She was asked about the arrest of Maria Butina, the red-haired Russian gun activist who was indicted by the Justice Department for working as foreign agent.
Sanders said the White House was watching the situation and then slammed the media for a photo that went around social media that claimed Butina was in the Oval Office.
A reporter from Mic tweeted the photo on Tuesday and wrote erroneously that the red-haired woman in it was the Russian. The tweet was retweeted many times before it was deleted an hour later after the woman was identified as a White House staffer.
‘There was a massive media hysteria yesterday over confusion between that individual and a White House staffer, which I think shows, frankly, the outrageousness and the, just, desire to find the negative in everything that this President does. Just because somebody was simply redheaded, they were accused of being some sort of spy for Russia,’ Sander said from the podium on Wednesday.
‘I think that this has gotten totally out of control, and you guys need to take a little bit of a step back, slow down, and quit going after the Trump administration on every single thing that takes place,’ Sanders said.
Trump, in his CBS interview, said he told Putin directly that ‘We can’t have any of that’ when it comes to Russian interference with the U.S. elections.
Asked by CBS anchor Jeff Glor what he told Putin, Trump responded: ‘Very strong on the fact that we can’t have meddling, we can’t have any of that.’ He says he ‘let him know we can’t have this, we’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be.’
Trump’s tough talk is impossible to verify because the White House said Thursday it was unaware of any recording, and there was no one in the room other than the two men and interpreters.