President Donald Trump says he will talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin about election meddling when they will meet next month.
‘We don’t want anybody tampering with elections,’ the president told reporters during a flight on Friday evening to New Jersey.
The U.S. president says he also plans to talk to Putin about the civil war in Syria and Russia’s incursion into Crimea when they meet on July 16 Helsinki, Finland, saying, ‘We might be talking about some things President Obama lost.’
‘Don’t forget, President Obama gave up Crimea. That was totally given up by President Obama…No, he lost — President Obama allowed that to happen, which was very unfortunate,’ Trump said. ‘It was during President Obama’s term…I think it could’ve been handled much differently…which is a shame, frankly.’
President Donald Trump says he will talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin about election meddling when they will meet next month
Trump indicated that he would consider lifting the United States’ punishing actions on Russia for the bad behavior, telling journalists, ‘We”ll see what Russia does.’
‘Perhaps the world can deescalate, with China, Russia…maybe the world can somewhat deescalate,’ he said. ‘That would not be a bad thing. But I think having a relationship with China, Russia…it’s a good thing.’
The White House said Thursday that the two leaders would discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues as it formally announced the Trump-Putin summit.
Topics of discussion will also include the Ukraine and Syria, Trump said at the White House on Wednesday and potentially Russian election meddling.
It’s the first solo talks between the two world leaders. Other conversations took place on the sidelines of major summits.
Trump and Putin had had their first face-to-face meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, last July. They had a brief meeting in November at the APEC Summit in Da Nang, Vietnam.
They will convene talks again next month as Trump finishes a trip to Belgium, England and Scotland. His last stop, the White House says, will be the neutral territory of Finland.
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin (3-R) and US National security advisor John Bolton (3-L) during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, along with U.S. ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman
The White House announcement that Trump would meet with Putin came on the same morning that the president used Twitter to defend Russia on accusations of election interference. He said the conspiracy lies with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, instead.
‘Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election! Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t Shady James Comey and the now disgraced FBI agents take and closely examine it? Why isn’t Hillary/Russia being looked at? So many questions, so much corruption!’ the president wrote Thursday.
His tweet appeared to contradict what his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
Pompeo said that Trump is sure to warn Putin that it is ‘completely unacceptable’ to interfere in U.S. elections.
‘I’m confident that when the president meets with Vladimir Putin he will make clear that meddling in our elections is completely unacceptable,’ Pompeo said during a Senate subcommittee hearing that covered a range of foreign policy challenges.
In a short conversation Friday with reporters on Air Force One the president affirmed that the plans to bring the topic up, telling reporters, ‘I’ll talk to him about everything.’
U.S. intelligence agencies have asserted that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election to benefit of Trump and hurt Clinton. And special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating possible Trump campaign collusion.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer slammed Trump after his Thursday tweet encouraged him to sit down with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
‘Why do you trust Putin more than your own Republican DOJ officials and the Republican special counsel that was appointed by a Republican? Sit down and do the interview,’ he wrote.
Sen. Chuck Schumer slammed Trump on twitter
Trump tweeted in favor of Russia before the date of his meeting with Putin was announced
Pompeo said a conversation with Russia is one ‘worth having’ so that the two countries can put the relationship back on track
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was in Moscow this week to negotiate the summit details.
The senior White House official said at a Wednesday news conference that the president’s critics have tried to make hay of the meeting with Putin to score political points.
Bolton said that ‘despite the noise’ the president believes it would be better to directly communicate with Putin.
Trump likewise said in the Oval Office on Wednesday: ‘I’ve said it from day one: Getting along with Russia and with China and with everybody is a very good thing.
‘It’s good for the world, it’s good for us, it’s good for everybody. So we’ll probably be meeting sometime around my trip to Europe.’
Bolton slapped down charges at his news conference that a meeting with Putin means there’s a ‘nexus’ between Russian election meddling at the U.S. president.
The allegation is ‘complete nonsense’ he said while admitting that it’s not ‘helpful’ to the two countries’ relations.
‘But what must guide his conduct is the pursuit of American national interest,’ Bolton said, explaining that the summit is something President Trump believes ‘that he needs to do and will do regardless of political criticism at home.’
He described his own talks with Putin as ‘wide-ranging’ in opening remarks.
In response to questions, he acknowledged that the conversation including the U.S. sanctions on Russia that Putin wants Trump to let up for the incursion into Crimea and attempts to disrupt the American presidential election.
Election meddling came up during Bolton’s press conference in relation to a statement he made prior to joining the Trump administration deriding Putin.
‘As I’ve said, many times in Washington, and I’m now happy to say for the first time in Moscow, I don’t really address what I’ve written in the past or what I’ve said on television. It’s all out there. Right now I’m an adviser to President Trump,’ replied the former U.S. ambassador who flirted in 2015 with a presidential run.
Bolton said: ‘It’s his agenda that we’re pursuing. And that’s the agenda that I intend to advance.
‘But we did indeed talk about Russian interference in the elections, and I expect it will be a subject of conversation between the two presidents, as well.’
Russian diplomat Yuri Ushakov said prior to the avail that talks with Bolton were ‘constructive and businesslike.’ He also acknowledged that a conversation took place about election meddling.
‘It was stated clearly by our side that the Russian state hasn’t interfered with the U.S. domestic politics, moreover hasn’t interfered in the 2016 election,’ the Putin aide said, according to the Associated Press.
Over the weekend, Pompeo said a meeting between Trump and Putin would be helpful to the countries’ relations, in spite of a U.S. assessment that Russia is trying to meddle in the mid-term elections.
The top U.S. diplomat told CNN, ‘The Russians, unlike the Europeans, don’t share our value set.’
However, he said a conversation with Russia is one ‘worth having’ so that the two nations can try to put their relationship back on track.
‘Whether it’s the battlefield in Syria, the situation in Ukraine, the Russians’ active measures,’ Pompeo said. ‘I am sure there are many topics that President Trump and President Putin will discuss and each of them is important to trying to put the relationship back in place with a common set of understandings.’
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin next month in Europe would be helpful to the countries’ relations, in spite of a U.S. assessment that Russia is trying to meddle in the mid-term elections
Russia’s interference in the 2016 election has been a sore spot for the president who has campaign associates who been probed in response to allegations that they were in on it.
Trump has said at times that he believes Russia did do it only to come back and claim that he believes the Kremlin head’s claims that the country didn’t.
The U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly warned that the November elections are ripe for additional attempts at disruption. Still, Trump has said he believes it would be better for the U.S. and sanctioned-nation to have a dialogue.
‘President Obama lost Crimea … Obama lost Crimea because President Putin didn’t respect President Obama, didn’t respect our country, and didn’t respect Ukraine,’ Trump told DailyMail.com and other reporters on the North Lawn of the White House earlier this month.
Trump implied that he believes that he will not have the same problems.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said this month, however, that it’s his assessment that Russia is ‘attempting to influence the midterm elections in the United States in November as well as divide the transatlantic alliance.’
‘These Russian actions are purposeful and premeditated and they represent an all-out assault, by Vladimir Putin, on the rule of law, Western ideals and democratic norms,’ he told the Atlantic Council.
National Security Advisor John Bolton (top) laid the groundwork this week in Moscow for a July summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump (bottom)
Trump has expressed doubt that Russia interfered in the 2016 election
As CIA director in January, Pompeo also concluded, ‘The Russians have been at this a long time, and I fully expect they’ll continue to be at it.’
‘We will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust, that the impact they have on our election won’t be great,’ he told the BBC.
In an interview published Tuesday, Pompeo, now the secretary of state, told CNN that ‘Trump agrees Russia interfering in our election is something they simply cannot do’ and he does not believe the president would take ‘any umbrage with that.’
But he said, ‘To say there is a single issue that has caused there to not to be a warm relationship between the two countries is a misnomer.’
Trump and Putin last met face-to-face during the November 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Da Nang, Vietname
Washington-Moscow ties have been strained by the special counsel Russia probe into election meddling and alleged Trump campaign collusion. Trump added stress when he pulled out of the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal.
The U.S. has also been streadfast in its condemnation of the Kremlin for a poisoning attack of a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom.
The last Trump-Putin meeting was a brief encounter in November 2017 during an APEC leaders summit in Vietnam.
But Pompeo said in an interview broadcast Saturday that U.S. was ‘trying to find places where we have overlapping interests’ with Russia, ‘but protecting American interest where we do not.’
Just prior to the interview, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized that Moscow was ‘ready for contacts’ with Washington, and also said any agreement ‘on a high-level meeting’ would be announced in advance of it.
National Security Advisor John Bolton is pictured listening to Trump as he spoke to reporters on June 9, 2018, during the G7 Summit in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada
Trump has claimed that ‘nobody has been tougher on Russia,’ and he may have a chance to demonstrate next month that he’s willing to push back against the nation’s autocrat
Trump and Putin hold a closely watched bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017
Trump and Putin discussed a face-to-face meeting in March, when Trump called the Russian leader to congratulate him on his re-election. Both the White House and Kremlin revealed that Trump had invited Putin to visit the White House.
That raised eyebrows among Democrats who have long suggested a cozy relationship between the two men led to Trump’s election victory in 2016.
Helsinki has been the site of other historic summits and was picked this time was a mutually acceptable country for both parties.
It is known for the 1975 agreement signed by 35 nations in an attempt to improve relations between the Communists and the West known as the The Helsinki Accords.
In March 1997, then-President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin met in Helsinki on security and economic issues.
An aide to the Kremlin, Yuri Ushakov, was the first to say that the rumored summit between Trump and Putin would take place on Wednesday calling it ‘this summer’s most important international event.’