With Vladimir Putin by his side, Donald Trump hails summit while challenging US intelligence findings
Trump seemed to accept Putin’s denial of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, putting him at odds with his own agencies and national security adviser
US President Donald Trump declared Monday night that all-time low relations between the United States and Russia had significantly improved after he held two hours of closed-door talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.
“Our relationship has never been worse, but that changed about four hours ago,” Trump declared at a press conference after the meeting at the presidential palace.
Putin, standing next to Trump, acknowledged that the relationship between their two countries was “complicated” but that they had covered a range of issues, from deploying weapons in space to ending the crisis in war-torn Syria.
Trump also appeared to accept Putin’s denial of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.
“President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said as he stood next to the Russian leader at a joint news conference. “He just said it’s not Russia. Let me say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
On Friday, the US Justice Department laid out details of what it said was a far-reaching hacking scheme in an indictment of 12 Russian agents whom it accused of trying to disrupt the election. Trump’s willingness to accept Putin’s denials puts him at odds, not only with his US intelligence agencies and lawmakers from both parties, but also his own national security adviser, John Bolton, who said Sunday that after seeing the indictments, he found it “hard to believe” that Putin was unaware of election interference.