John Kerry calls Trump’s meeting with Putin ‘disgraceful’ and ‘dangerous’

Former Secretary of State John Kerry has blasted President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin as ‘disgraceful’.

‘I found it shocking. I found it to be one of the most disgraceful, remarkable moments of kowtowing to a foreign leader by an American president that anyone has ever witnessed,’ Kerry said on Sunday to CBS Face The Nation.

Kerry is just the latest Democrat, along with more than a few Beltway Republicans, to condemn Trump for not denouncing Putin for election meddling at their meeting in Helsinki last week.

Speaking with CBS on Martha’s Vineyard, Kerry continued: ‘And it wasn’t just that it was a kind of surrender. It’s that it is dangerous. The president stood there and did not defend our country. He stood there and did not defend the truth, he did not defend the facts.’

Kerry spoke with Face The Nation at his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard over the weekend

Kerry said the meeting sent a message to the world that Trump ‘really doesn’t have a handle on what he’s doing’ and that he doesn’t ‘know either what the facts are or he won’t accept the facts’ in relation to Russian election meddling.

For his part, Trump said on Friday that Barack Obama, under whom Kerry served as secretary of state, was the true ‘patsy’ in Russian relations.

‘Look at all the things that I have done. Nobody else did what I have done,’ Trump told CNBC. ‘Obama didn’t do it. Obama was a patsy for Russia. He was a total patsy.’

Kerry defended the Obama administration by pointing out that the alleged Russian interference was ‘just unfolding’ under his watch.

‘We discovered this in the late summer’ of 2016, Kerry said. ‘And so you’re- you’re in the last moments of the presidential campaign, and the president [Obama] is already being accused of, you know, engaging in trickery.’ 

Kerry called Trump's meeting with Putin in Helsinki (above) 'disgraceful' and 'dangerous'

Kerry called Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki (above) ‘disgraceful’ and ‘dangerous’

‘So he had to stand back a little bit. But I was there in China when the president took President Putin aside. I know what he said to him,’ Kerry continued.

Kerry said that photos from the private meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 in September 2016 prove that Putin was ‘fairly unhappy’ with Obama’s admonishments.

The former secretary of state also subtlety suggested that Trump was somehow under malign influence with respect to Putin.

‘Something is having an impact on- on President Trump with respect to dealing with Russia,’ he said. And when you go out and you attack NATO and you attack our alliance – our allies – you start denigrating major leaders who have made a very significant effort to hold Russia accountable. You are really ripping apart something critical to the security of the United States and you are doing President Putin’s work for him.’

Kerry said that photos from the private meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 in September 2016 (above) prove that Putin was 'fairly unhappy' with Obama's admonishments

Kerry said that photos from the private meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 in September 2016 (above) prove that Putin was ‘fairly unhappy’ with Obama’s admonishments

Kerry is seen in front of the Kremlin during a 2013 trip to Moscow to attempt to restore frayed US-Russia relations

Kerry is seen right with Putin during a 2013 trip to Moscow to attempt to restore frayed US-Russia relations

Kerry is seen left in front of the Kremlin and right with Putin during a 2013 trip to Moscow to attempt to restore frayed US-Russia relations

Kerry also responded to recent remarks Trump made to CBS News when he was asked about the prospect of facing former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Trump said on Thursday: ‘Look, Joe Biden ran three times. He never got more than one percent, and President Obama took him out of the garbage heap, and everybody was shocked that he did. I’d love to have it be Biden.’

‘I think it’s so outrageous,’ Kerry said of the remark. ‘It’s so personal. So unbecoming of a president of the United States to engage in that kind of- it shows fear or something, I don’t know.’

Kerry claimed that Trump was looking for a ‘diversion’ from the issue of his handling of Russia.

‘What he does is, he’s always looking for the diversion, always moving away from the real business of our country because he doesn’t know how to do the real business of our country,’ Kerry said.  



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