President Trump Responds to Putin Summit Critics
President Donald Trump has responded to those criticizing his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Writing on Twitter, President Trump condemned “haters” who did not want him getting along with Vladimir Putin, saying they suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.
President Trump said he misspoke at the press conference with President Putin.
He had sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence services on claims of Russian election meddling.
That had sparked outrage from both sides of the political divide.
In a series of tweets, President Trump said: “So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki. Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!”
Later, he added: “Some people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome!”
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The tweets came a day after he said he had missed out a word when appearing to support Vladimir Putin’s claim that there was no Russian involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.
President Trump said he accepted his intelligence services’ assessment that Russia had interfered.
The controversy centers on a response he gave to a question at a news conference on July 16 following the summit with President Putin.
The AP reporter asked at the news conference: “President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every US intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did. My first question for you, sir, is, who do you believe?”
President Trump responded: “My people came to me… they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
President Trump said he had reviewed the transcript and realized he needed to clarify.
He said: “In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word <<would>> instead of <<wouldn’t>>.
“The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t’ or ‘why it wouldn’t be Russia’. Sort of a double negative.”
President Trump added: “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”