Trump, Putin sit down a bit late for closely watched summit

Trump and Putin sat beside each other inside an ornate room lined with USA and Russian flags. “That is not the position of the United States”, countered Bolton.

“This is all dreamt up by people opposing Trump in order to delegitimize his work”, Putin pointed out in an interview with ABC News when asked about Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 USA presidential election. “He feels very strongly about it and has an interesting idea”, without elaborating.

“Not welcome”, read one sign, held by Hemmo Siponen, showing a cartoon of Trump and Putin embracing. Asked what he would say to the Russian president, Trump said: “We’ll do just fine, thank you”.

Air Force One touched down at Helsinki Airport at 20:55 (local time) carrying Trump ahead of the historic meeting with Putin scheduled for Tuesday.

The brash 72-year-old billionaire has been president for 18 months while Putin, 65, has run Russian Federation for the past 18 years. Just the two of them, each with a translator. “They had bad defenses and they were able to be hacked”.

Putin arrived by plane on July 16 – almost one hour behind schedule according to some accounts, and about 15 minutes before the one-on-one meeting had been set to start. “Congratulations to France, who played extraordinary soccer, on winning the 2018 World Cup”.

Shortly before the summit opened, Trump was asked if he would press Putin over Russia’s alleged manipulation of the 2016 election that brought the mercurial property tycoon to power. Notably, he also mentioned a desire to discuss Chinese President Xi Jinping. Instead, he seems content to accept the Kremlin’s contention that “the meddling never happened”, or, as he put it in November, “Every time [Putin] sees me, he says, “I didn’t do that”, and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it”.

Trump did say he would bring up the evidence and ask Putin “firmly” if Russian Federation indeed purposefully did so.

“Somebody said are you friends or enemies?”

The US President said they would talk about a range of subjects, listing trade, the military, nuclear weapons and China.

“I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today”, said Trump, repeatedly denouncing the special counsel investigation into Russian interference efforts, which intelligence officials warn are ongoing. “But I could name others, also”. Trump, in opening remarks, said that U.S. -Russia relations had been at their lowest point until the two sat down face-to-face in a highly anticipated summit.

This was after he tweeted earlier that Washington’s “foolishness and stupidity” was the reason for bad relations.

Adding to the intrigue surrounding the summit, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted its agreement.

Then Trump complained once again that President Obama did nothing to stop the Russian election meddling that he publicly encouraged. Moreover, Mueller helped prosecute the former Enron chairman, CEO, and CAO for their crimes including conspiracy, fraud, and making false statements, in 2004.

Putin is likely to strongly reaffirm his denial of any meddling and cast the US charges as unfounded. Undeterred, the American president is set to go face to face with Mr Putin, the authoritarian leader for whom he has expressed admiration.