Trump claims he had better meeting with Putin of Russia, but many of bipartisan lawmakers consider this summit as “nothing short of treason” or "“disgraceful", "shameful"
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
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| Trump and Putin hold jopint press conference in Helsinki after summit of July 16, 2018 |
VietPress USA (July 17, 2018): Read this report from a conservative website about the joint press conference held in Helsinki, Finland between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin of Russia after their summit on July 16, 2018:
VietPress USA News
TRUMP FIRES BACK AT CRITICS OF PUTIN PRESSER PERFORMANCE, AS HOYER ECHOES 'TREASON' SLAM
President Trump dug in Tuesday amid bipartisan criticism over his press conference with Vladimir Putin, claiming the “Fake News” is ignoring what he described as a successful summit — and his tough stance with NATO actually helped the alliance counter Russia’s influence.
The president defended his talks with Putin via Twitter, after being greeted to a political firestorm in Washington upon returning from the Helsinki summit.
Members of both parties criticized Trump for not publicly standing by U.S. intelligence assessments that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. As GOP lawmakers discussed crafting a resolution to endorse those findings, Democrats took their criticism to new levels on Tuesday.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Trump’s remarks were “nothing short of treason,” echoing comments from Obama CIA boss John Brennan.
But Trump tweeted Tuesday that his NATO meeting, where he pressed allies to commit more in defense spending, as well as the Putin summit were a success. Further, he argued his actions at NATO would be bad for Russia.
“I had a great meeting with NATO. They have paid $33 Billion more and will pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars more in the future, only because of me. NATO was weak, but now it is strong again (bad for Russia). The media only says I was rude to leaders, never mentions the money!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
He added, moments later, that his meeting with Putin was “even better.”
“While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Sadly, it is not being reported that way—the Fake News is going Crazy!”
Trump angered members of both parties by saying both countries are to blame for damaged U.S.-Russian relations, and letting Putin deny election meddling unchallenged. Trump said he has great confidence in the intelligence community, but Putin gave a “strong and powerful” denial. He said he doesn’t “see any reason why” Russia would be behind election meddling.
“Russia did meddle with our elections,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday, while urging the U.S. to aid other democracies around the world in protecting their election systems. “We know that they interfered, and we have passed sanctions…to make sure they don’t interfere again.”
Ryan suggested that the U.S. “will face this Russian aggression again.”
When asked whether he thought Trump was treasonous, he responded: “I do not.”
Ryan did say, however, that Special Counsel Robert Mueller “should be allowed to carry out his work” in investigating Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 presidential election.
On the Senate side, Republicans are discussing a new measure to back the intelligence community’s findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. So far, a similar measure has not been introduced or discussed in the House.
“I do think that the findings … during the end of the Obama administration provides a road map to what the Russians did, as do the indictment of the 12 Russian GRU intelligence officials. And we’d better wake up,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
Cornyn added that he “trusts” the intelligence community and the special counsel investigation “so far.”
“[The investigation] has shown there was absolutely no collusion with the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence activity leading up to the election,” Cornyn said. “That’s what I think has got the president so spun up, is because he feels this is an attack on him personally.”
He added: “I wish we could separate those two. But indeed our Democratic colleagues don’t want to separate those because they realize that this is the best way to keep this story going for as long as they can, through the next election, and who knows, through the presidential election as well.”
Trump was hit with a blistering statement from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has been out of Washington for months battling brain cancer. He called the president’s performance “disgraceful.”
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., another Republican often critical of the president, also blasted Trump.
“I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful,” Flake tweeted.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer made similar comments, while calling on Congress to ratchet up sanctions on Russia in response to Monday’s events.
“What the president has done is an insult to all Americans,” Schumer said.
Trump later clarified on Twitter: “As I said today and many times before, ‘I have GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people.’ However, I also recognize that in order to build a brighter future, we cannot exclusively focus on the past – as the world’s two largest nuclear powers, we must get along!”
Even some of the president’s closest surrogates, like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, criticized his comments.
But the president found a supporter in Sen. Rand Paul, R- Ky., who defended Trump:
“Republicans that are making the criticism are either the pro-war Republicans like McCain and Graham or the anti-Trump ones like Sasse … They are motivated by their persistent and consistent dislike of the president.”
The president, on Tuesday, thanked Sen. Paul.
“Thank you @RandPaul. ‘The President has gone through a year and a half of totally partisan investigations – what’s he supposed to think?'” he tweeted.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Anne Ball contributed to this report.
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