Trump to meet with Putin
President Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters Thursday.
The meeting will take place at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, and will be the first meeting between the two world leaders since Mr. Trump took office. The meeting, McMaster said, will be one of many bilateral meetings Mr. Trump has at the summit, which is scheduled for July 7-8.
The meeting comes as pressure mounts on Mr. Trump to definitively say Russia was responsible for meddling in the 2016 election, a conclusion his own top intelligence appointees have long held. A recent report from the Washington Post said Putin gave direct instructions to help elect Mr. Trump. But Mr. Trump has been more reluctant to call out Russia, and continues to call the investigations into any connections between Russia and his campaign a "witch hunt."
The president, through the years and even in recent months, has made positive comments about the Russian leader. In September 2015 he told reporters at Trump Tower in New York that Putin is, "nicer than I am." At a rally in May 2016, Mr. Trump called Putin a "strong leader." During a Super Bowl interview with former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly earlier this year, Mr. Trump defended Putin when O'Reilly called the foreign leader a killer. "There are a lot of killers," Trump said. "Do you think our country is so innocent? Do you think our country is so innocent?"
