Trump had second private G20 talk with Putin
AFTER his much-publicised two-and-a-quarter-hour meeting early this month with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Germany, US President Donald Trump chatted informally with the Russian leader for up to an additional hour later the same day.
The second meeting, undisclosed at the time, took place at a dinner for G20 leaders, a senior administration official said. At some point during the meal, Mr Trump left his own seat to occupy a chair next to Mr Putin. Mr Trump approached alone, and Mr Putin was attended only by his official interpreter.
In a statement issued after published reports of the conversation, the White House said that “there was no ‘second meeting’ between Mr Trump and Mr Putin, just a brief conversation at the end of a dinner. The insinuation that the White House has tried to ‘hide’ a second meeting,” it said, “is false, malicious and absurd.”
“All the leaders” circulated around the room throughout the dinner, and “President Trump spoke with many leaders,” the statement said. “As the dinner was concluding,” it said, Mr Trump spoke “briefly” with Mr Putin, who was seated next to first lady Melania Trump.
The dinner conversation with Mr Putin was first reported by Ian Bremmer, president of the New York-based Eurasia Group, in a newsletter to group clients. He said the meeting began “halfway in” to the meal and lasted “roughly an hour”. The senior official said it began with the dessert course, but did not comment on its length.
Pool reporters covering Mr Trump noted that his and Mr Putin’s motorcades were among the last to leave the event, departing within minutes of each other just before midnight.
The encounter appeared to underscore the extent to which Mr Trump was eager throughout the summit to cultivate a friendship with Mr Putin. During last year’s campaign, he spoke admiringly of the Russian leader and at times seemed captivated by him.
Meeting each other faceto-face for the first time at the Hamburg summit, the two presidents seemed to have a chemistry in their more formal bilateral session, evidenced by the fact that, despite being scheduled for 35 minutes, it continued for more than two hours.
But Mr Trump’s newly revealed conversation with Mr Putin at the G20 dinner is likely to stoke criticism, including perhaps from some fellow Republicans in Congress, that he is too cosy with the leader of a major US adversary.
Mr Putin’s aide provided the only Russian-English interpretation, the White House statement said, because the president was seated next to the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Each couple was allowed one translator,” it said. “The American translator accompanying President Trump spoke Japanese.” The only version of the conversation provided to White House aides was that given by Mr Trump himself, said the administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the White House statement was issued. Reporters traveling with the White House were not informed during the trip, and there was no formal readout of the chat.
The official Trump-Putin meeting, earlier in the day, led to confusion over whether Mr Trump agreed, as Mr Putin later implied, to accept the Kremlin’s denial of any wrongdoing regarding interference in last year’s election.
That meeting was attended by the leaders and their two interpreters, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Mr Tillerson later said Mr Trump twice asked Mr Putin if the conclusions of the US intelligence community that Russia had meddled in the race were true, and Mr Putin twice denied it, so they moved on to other subjects of importance to the bilateral relationship, including Syria.
Russia’s activities during the election, along with allegations that members of Mr Trump’s campaign may have co-ordinated with Kremlin attempts to tilt the race in Mr Trump’s direction, are the subject of investigations in Congress and by a special counsel.
In Mr Trump’s own account of the formal meeting, he repeated earlier comments that another country might have been responsible for cyber-interference in the election.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t Russia. What I’m saying is that we have to protect ourselves no matter who it is,” he told reporters on Air Force One as he returned from a visit to France last week. (© The Washington Post)
Each couple was allowed one translator. The American translator accompanying President Trump spoke Japanese (because he was sitting next to the wife of the Japanese prime minister).