PUTIN NOT MY ENEMY, U.S. PRESIDENT SAYS
“Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people.”
When he departed Washington last week, Trump said meeting with Putin may be “the easiest” part of his trip. And as in last month’s Singapore summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he is banking on his personality to forge a lasting bond with Putin that could improve U.S.-Russia relations and solve some of the world’s intractable problems.
“He’s been very nice to me the times I’ve met him,” Trump told reporters last week in Brussels, previewing his Putin tête-àtête.
“I’ve been nice to him. He’s a competitor … He’s not my enemy. And hopefully, someday, maybe he’ll be a friend. It could happen.”
In an indication of his friendly posture, Trump said he “hadn’t thought” of asking Putin to extradite the 12 Russian agents indicted by the U.S. Justice Department when prompted in a CBS interview.
Trump went on to blame his predecessor for Russia’s election interference, saying, “They were doing whatever it was during the Obama administration,” and adding that the Democratic National Committee “should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked.”
For the Kremlin, blaming Obama and the Washington establishment for the world’s ills has been one way to continue winning over Trump.
Ever since Trump’s surprise election victory, Putin has been echoing Trump’s claim that investigations into Russian election interference are sinister efforts to delegitimize and sabotage his presidency by Washington’s Democratic establishment and “deep state,” a reference to the intelligence and national-security apparatus. Both Trump and Putin have said the investigations are undermining U.S.-Russia relations and preventing progress on Syria and other problems.
“We are well aware of the extent to which the American establishment is being held hostage to stereotypes and is under the heaviest domestic anti-Russian pressure,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week, according to Tass, a Russian state-controlled news agency.
In Washington, Democratic leaders called on Trump to cancel the summit over last Friday’s indictments.
While there is precedent — Obama nixed a Moscow meeting with Putin in 2013 in part because Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden, who stands accused of illegally leaking U.S. intelligence secrets — Trump decided to keep the meeting.
Trump has pledged to ask Putin whether Russia interfered in the election, though he said he assumes he will again deny it.
U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia is likely to try to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections, and both Democrats and Republicans have implored Trump to sternly warn him against doing so.
“All patriotic Americans should understand that Putin is not America’s friend, and he is not the president’s buddy,” Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said in a statement.
Russian officials say it was Trump who insisted holding a one-on-one meeting with Putin to start Monday’s talks. But some of them haven’t hid their anticipation that such a format will produce desired results.
Within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, there is considerable concern that Trump is meeting with Putin without the presence of advisers or note-takers.
“Putin is now meeting his fourth U.S. president,” said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia. “He has been working on foreign affairs at the highest levels for two decades and at lower levels his whole life. He knows all the possible agenda items much better than Trump does. So why give the Russian side such an advantage?”