Trump meets Putin
Donald Trump faced a barrage of criticism on his return from his summit meeting with Russia’s President Putin, with even senior members of his own party accusing him of having “betrayed” America. In an extraordinary press conference in Helsinki, Trump had not only blamed former US presidents for the deteriorating relations with Moscow, but had pooh-poohed evidence provided by US intelligence that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election. “[President Putin] said it’s not Russia... I don’t see any reason why it would be.” He had gone on to condemn Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian interference as “a disaster for our country”.
Back-pedalling hard, Trump declared on Tuesday that he had “misspoken”: he’d meant to say “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia”, not “why it would be”. He also insisted that he has “full faith in our intelligence agencies”.
What the editorials said
Trump’s Helsinki performance was even more shocking than his antics of the week before – when he trashed Nato allies as “deadbeats” and described the EU as a “foe”, said The New York Times. Standing alongside Putin, an “autocratic thug”, the president “turned to putty”, happy to accept Putin’s denials of Russian interference in the US election, and ignore the unanimous conclusions of the CIA, the FBI and the Justice Department.
It’s good Trump has now admitted his error, said The Wall Street Journal. But the worry is his continued enthusiasm for working with Putin on issues such as arms control. Seemingly unaware of Moscow’s violations of the AntiBallistic Missile Treaty, he appears keen to be drawn into arms-control negotiations, yet he is “so untutored in nuclear arms”, that it could only benefit Russia. Just by meeting Putin, Trump has handed Russia a victory, said The Times. Putin’s “agents have meddled with elections, his proxies have shot down an airliner, poison has been used against British citizens”. Instead of treating Putin as a pariah, Trump has rewarded him with a handshake.