Putin and the president
Dem, GOP voices mock president’s offer that Russia, U.S. team up against hacking
Lawmakers criticize Donald Trump’s touting of a proposed partnership with Russia on cybersecurity.
WASHINGTON —President Donald Trump’s touting of a proposed partnership with Russia on cybersecurity drew withering reviews Sunday from lawmakers, including several from his own party, while the president’s aides were left struggling to answer questions about just how hard Trump pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on Moscow’s meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election.
Trump’s encounter with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 economic summit in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday was his first meeting as president with the Russian leader. It came after months of controversy over Russian cyber meddling and whether anyone close to Trump’s campaign had colluded in it.
The White House has sought to portray Trump’s trip to Germany and a stopover beforehand in Poland as a solid success, despite a striking degree of U.S. isolation at the G-20 gathering over climate change and trade.
Trump returned Saturday to what promises to be a bruising new round of battles over the faltering Senate health care plan and fresh GOP anxiety over whether the party, which controls both houses of Congress, can notch meaningful legislative achievements by summer’s end.
As often happens, Trump made the job of White House underlings more difficult — this time, with a series of tweets Sunday morning in which he again seemed to equivocate on whether Russian hacking had taken place. He also revived attack lines against former President Barack Obama and John Podesta, who ran Hillary Clinton’s losing presidential campaign.
Almost as soon as the Trump-Putin talks ended Friday after more than two hours of discussions, the Russians embarked on a public-relations offensive.
With the U.S. side staying out of camera range, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov happily informed reporters that Trump had accepted Putin’s denial of interference in the campaign.
Put in reinforced that narrative Saturday, saying that Trump had seemed “satisfied” with his protestations of innocence.
The Trump administration presented its own nuanced version, via Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: that the president had repeatedly raised the issue of cyber meddling with Putin and the two sides had agreed it was time to move on to other and more pressing issue, including the civil war in Syria.
Trump himself weighed in with a series of tweets Sunday saying he had “strongly pressed” Putin over election interference and that the Russian leader “vehemently denied it.”
White House officials said Sunday that Trump did not believe Putin’s denials, though neither he nor aides have described him pushing back against them at the time.
“The president absolutely did not believe the denial of President Putin,” Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump in his tweets avoided that point, saying only, “I’ve already given my opinion.” As recently as Thursday, Trump expressed doubts about whether Russia had interfered in the election, remarking in a news conference in Warsaw that “I think it could verywell have been Russia, but I think it could well have been other countries.”
“Nobody really knows for sure,” he said.
Rather than repeat those doubts, Trump’s tweets touted his talk with Putin about creating an “impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to combat abuses like hacking and online propaganda.
That prospect left some leading Republicans scarcely able to contain their disbelief.
“It’s not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, but it’s pretty close,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who called Trump’s talks with Putin “disastrous.” Interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the GOP veteran added: “When it comes to Russia, he’s got a blind spot.”
In addition to the U.S. intelligence assessment that the Russian leader personally authorized the campaign to interfere in the American vote with the aim of aiding Trump, Moscow stands accused of cyber meddling in several European election campaigns.
Sen. John McCain, a prominent Russia hawk, was asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation” whether Russia was really likely to provide any help in combating election interference.
“I am sure that Vladimir Putin could be of enormous” — the Arizona Republican paused to chortle — “assistance to that effort, since he’s doing the hacking.” Turning serious, he added: “Yes, it’s time to move forward, but there has to be a price to pay” for an attack on American democracy.
Trump surrogates, though, defended the plan as a worthy effort to bring Russia into the fold.
“This is about having the capabilities to make sure that we both fight cyber (interference) together, which I think is a very significant accomplishment for President Trump,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Democratic lawmakers and former Obama administration officials found little to praise about the proposal. “We might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Schiff is the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee.
Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called it a page from the old Sovietera playbook.
Tillerson, who was visiting Ukraine on Sunday, also took a tougher line toward Moscow, saying it was the Kremlin’s responsibility to “de-escalate” the situation in the country’s eastern sector by removing its armaments and exercising control over separatists loyal to Russia.
Until then, he said at a news conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, sanctions would remain in place.