Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that President Trump should not hold any more one-on-one meetings with Russian President…
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Thursday that President Trump should not hold any more one-on-one meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin until the administration details what happened during Monday’s summit in Helsinki.
“Until we know what happened at that two hour meeting in Helsinki, the president should have no more one-on-one interactions with Putin. In the United States, in Russia, or anywhere else,“ Schumer said in a statement.
Talk of a second Trump-Putin meeting comes days after the two leaders met one-on-one for two hours in Finland. Trump sparked widespread backlash during a press conference after the meeting by refusing to condemn Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump then tried to walk back his comments on Tuesday, saying he accepts the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the election before adding that „other people“ could have meddled as well.
Senators in both parties said this week that they were largely in the dark about what, if anything, Trump and Putin agreed to during their closed-door session in the Finnish capital.
Democrats have used Trump’s rhetoric in the wake of the Putin summit to question what deals the two leaders might have made and if Russia has „damaging information“ on Trump.
„What could possibly cause President Trump to put the interests of Russia over those of the United States? Millions of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President Trump,“ Schumer said earlier this week.
Despite backlash over Helsinki, Trump has touted the sit-down as a success and signaled earlier Thursday that he wants to have a second meeting.
„The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear,“ Trump said in a tweet.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Thursday afternoon that the president has asked national security adviser John Bolton to invite Putin to the United States.
„President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway,“ she tweeted .
