TRUMP, on increased military spending by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries: “I had a great meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”.
Advertisement
DONALD Trump has now said Russian Federation did not meddle in the United States election in an astonishing U-turn from his remarks at a meeting with Vladimir Putin just days ago.
In the Finnish capital, Trump had refused to say he believed United States intelligence agencies over Russia’s denials of meddling and delivered no condemnation of Moscow’s interference. “Sort of a double negative”. Asked if Russian Federation was at all to blame for the poor ties, he said: “I hold both countries responsible”.
Trump undermines long-held tenets of U.S. foreign policy, admires autocrats, admonishes allies and ignores intelligence.
His handling of the Putin meeting drew scathing reactions from lawmakers.
President Donald Trump tore into former CIA Director John Brennan as a “very bad person” after the former top spymaster accused him of treason and invoked impeachment. Corker added that he thought Putin was likely celebrating the outcome of the meeting.
“What I see is that the policy of the rest of the executive branch isn’t too different from the Obama administration”, Stent said. “North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has never been more together”, he said at a breakfast meeting with the Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.
Two congressional aides confirmed to Foreign Policy that Pompeo will publicly testify before the committee next Wednesday.
On the other hand, the Trump-supporting news site Breitbart lauded the summit as “a success the media can’t admit”.
In the face of upcoming US midterm elections in November, Trump probably wanted to score another diplomatic point – after his “rapprochement” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their June 12 summit – by turning the meeting with Putin into an occasion to deny Russian interference.
“The sentence should have been, “I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t, or why it wouldn’t be Russia” instead of “why it would”, Trump said of the comments he had made standing alongside Vladimir Putin on Monday’s summit stage in Helsinki.
The US intelligence community has concluded that Russian Federation interfered in the last US presidential election.
“We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling”, Coats said in a statement.
The witch hunt he refers to is the allegations of Russian meddling in the presidential elections which put Mr Trump in office.
Putin proposed that same plan after they met at a Group of Seven summit in Germany past year. But if words matter, then Trump’s critics should be careful what they say. Monday, he reversed himself again, calling it an “interesting idea”.
Lively praised Trump yesterday in an email to supporters, but Baker, under pressure from Democrats to disavow Trump’s claims, did criticize the president – a day after the Trump-Putin summit press conference.
Speaking to the press after a private meeting, Trump ripped special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign’s possible election collusion with Russian Federation.
Trump tried to stop the bleeding on Tuesday, with a statement to the press in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, during which the notoriously loathe-to-retreat president sounded a note of contrition.
Advertisement
CNN producer David P Gelles shared a screenshot of what he assumed was the phrase “THERE WAS NO COLLUSION” written in all caps across Trump’s talking points.
