Trump facing criticism over summit with Putin
WASHINGTON — United States President Donald Trump said Thursday he wants another meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to start implementing ideas they discussed in Helsinki, casting the summit as a starting point for progress on a number of shared concerns.
Pushing back against criticism of his Putin meeting, Trump accused the news media of trying to provoke a confrontation with Moscow that could lead to war, although concerns about the meeting have been raised by a broad cross-section of Republicans and Democrats.
Trump tweeted a list of topics discussed at the summit, including terrorism, security for Israel, Mideast peace, Ukraine, North Korea and more, and wrote: “There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems ... but they can ALL be solved!”
“I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed,” he wrote. Trump also met with Putin last year in Germany and Vietnam.
Despite bipartisan criticism, Trump pointed blame at the media, tweeting: “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!”
“The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media,” he tweeted.
Numerous lawmakers have criticized Trump for his post-summit statements raising doubts about Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, intelligence community officials also differed with many of his statements.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham acknowledged Thursday that Trump has had a “bad week” on Russia.
“I think it’s imperative that he understand that he’s misjudging Putin,” Graham told reporters. “I don’t think he was prepared as well as he should have been.”
Graham said Trump was right to criticize previous administrations for their handling of Russia. But he said Trump “is not making the problem better, he’s making it worse.”
Thursday marked the third day of Trump trying to manage the political fallout from his widely-criticized performance at the summit meeting with Putin.
Putin, in his first public comments about the summit, told Russian diplomats Thursday that U.S.-Russian relations are “in some ways worse than during the Cold War,” but that the meeting has started them on “the path to positive change.”
“We will see how things develop further,” Putin said, evoking unnamed “forces” in the U.S. trying to prevent any improvement in relations and “putting narrow party interests above the national interest.”