Trump defends call with Putin, attacks media, his predecessors
US President Donald Trump defended on Wednesday his decision to disregard the advice of his national security team and congratulate President Vladimir Putin of Russia on his re-election, lashing out at the news media for reporting on how he diverged from his script and attacking his predecessors for failing to improve relations with Moscow.
Trump, enraged after officials leaked the contents of confidential notes he was given for the private phone call on Tuesday that exhorted him “DO NOT CONGRATULATE”Putin,arguedina pair of tweets on Wednesday afternoon that the conversation was part of his effort to foster better relations with Russia. He said such engagement could help the United States confront a host of national security challenges.
“I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory (in past, Obama called him also),” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to President Barack Obama’s call to Putin in 2012. “The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong!”
But Trump’s handling of the call and his defense of it also
WASHINGTON:
pointed up his aversion to confronting Putin about Moscow’s misdeeds, which has become a theme of his presidency even as a special counsel investigates Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election in his favor.
Trump’s own advisers had warned him against congratulating Putin and, in briefing cards prepared before the call, told him to raise Moscow’s role in a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter living in Britain, an instruction he also ignored.
One senior White House official said Trump had never seen the briefing cards. Another said the president had been determined not to antagonize Putin.
“Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing,” the president wrote. “They can help solve problems with North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, ISIS, Iran and even the coming Arms Race.”
Trump also took on his predecessors saying they had been incapable of forging better relations with Moscow.
“Bush tried to get along, but didn’t have the ‘smarts,’” Trump wrote. “Obama and Clinton tried, but didn’t have the energy or chemistry (remember RESET).”
He was referring to the policy of Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state in pursued a “reset” aimed at turning around a dysfunctional relationship.