US President Donald Trump did what he had to do: He confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin about the issue of Russian interference in last year’s US elections during their much-anticipated first meeting.
Under intense pressure to do so from his Democratic opponents and even some fellow Republicans, Trump would have been pilloried even before he got home from his European trip had he not broached the subject.
The US president can now point to the Putin meeting when challenged on whether he has been tough enough on the Russians. However, it is still to be seen how forcefully Trump will deal with the issue to prevent further meddling and to ensure consequences for what has already occurred.
Photo: AP
“If anything, we’ve seen Russia continue to pursue similar tactics in the French election. If anything, it feels to be intensifying and if we now say we’re done with this, we are not adequately protecting our country,” Center for Strategic and International Studies Europe expert Heather Conley said.
Without knowing exactly what Trump said to Putin on the issue during in their two-hours-plus meeting, it is hard to know whether Trump’s approach toward to the matter has shifted significantly.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who sat in on the meeting and briefed reporters afterward, said Trump opened the session by “raising the concerns of the American people regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.”
Trump pressed Putin on the matter more than once, Tillerson said, adding that Putin denied involvement and asked for proof.
Tillerson said the leaders agreed to work together on staying out of each other’s elections processes.
However, Trump has sent mixed signals about how seriously he regards the matter.
Deeply frustrated by the suggestion that his election victory might have been tainted, Trump has held back from fully endorsed the findings of multiple US intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in last year’s presidential election to help him win.
On Thursday, the day before he and Putin met, Trump leveled his latest critique of the US’ intelligence apparatus while standing on Polish soil, talking about whether Russia was involved and saying that Moscow was probably behind the meddling, but that other countries might be guilty, too.
“Nobody really knows,” he said.
Trump and Putin are “rightly” focused on moving relations between their countries forward from what he called an “intractable disagreement,” Tillerson said.
However, whatever Trump told Putin would have carried more weight if the president had not “equivocated” about who was behind the election interference, said US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chairman Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat.
“It would also have had more force if he had not again criticized the integrity of our intelligence agencies, among whom there is unwavering agreement about Russia’s active interference in the 2016 US presidential election,” Warner said.
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