US President Donald Trump has announced that he will invite his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin to a meeting in Washington, DC, drawing
protest from the top Senate Democrat, who had earlier questioned the two
leaders' summit in Helsinki.
In an interview with CNBC television on Thursday, Trump said that
"getting along with President Putin, getting along with Russia's a
positive, not a negative".
"I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed," Trump said.
"Now with that being said if it doesn't work out I'll be the worst enemy he's ever had."
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that meeting may come this fall.
"President Trump asked [National Security Advisor John Bolton] to invite
President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are
already underway," Sanders tweeted on Thursday.
No Russian leader has visited the White House in nearly a decade.
The invitation seemed to surprise Trump's own Director of National
Intelligence Dan Coats, who was told about it during a live interview at
an event in the US state of Colorado.
"Say that again?" Coats asked the interviewer.
"OK. That's going to be special," he said, laughing.
Cleanup of Helsinki aftermath
Thursday's announcement came as the White House sought to clean up days
of confounding Trump statements on Russian interference in the 2016
election.
Trump's public doubting of Russia's responsibility in a joint news
conference with Putin on Monday provoked withering criticism from
Republicans, as well as Democrats and forced the president to make a
rare public admission of error.
The White House said Trump "disagrees" with Putin's offer to allow US
questioning of 12 Russians who have been indicted for election
interference in exchange for Russian interviews with the former US
ambassador to Russia and other Americans the Kremlin accuses of
unspecified crimes.
Trump initially had described the idea as an "incredible offer".
The White House backtrack came just before the Senate voted
overwhelmingly against the proposal. It was Congress' first formal
rebuke of Trump's actions at the summit and in its aftermath.
The idea for another summit with Putin comes as Congress struggles with a
response to the first, and Thursday brought a flurry of actions as
politicians tried to uncover details of what happened in Helsinki.
Trump and Putin held two hours of closed-door talks with no one else present but the interpreters.
No Russian leader has visited the White House in nearly a decade [File: EPA]
Democratic Senate leader Charles Schumer said that unless details of the
Helsinki summit are known, the US president should refrain from more
one-on-one interactions Putin "in the United States, in Russia, or
anywhere else".
Putin told Russian diplomats on Thursday that US-Russian relations are
"in some ways worse than during the Cold War," but that the meeting with
Trump allowed a start on "the path to positive change".
He has yet to comment on the most recent announcement of a possible meeting in Washington, DC.
Moscow 'open' to US visit
The Russian envoy to the US said on Friday that Moscow was "open" to the possible visit.
Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said Russia "was always open to such
proposals" and that Moscow is "ready for discussions on this subject".
He added, however, that it was up to the Kremlin to formally respond.
He also said that it is important to "deal with the results" of the two
men's summit in Helsinki this week before moving ahead too fast with
another meeting.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Trump's goal was to "redirect" two countries "that'd been on a bad path."
"There's been a lot of heat and very little light following that press
conference," he told Catholic television network EWTN in an interview
broadcast on Thursday.
"I watched the president's interaction with President Putin after their
one-on-one meeting ... The president was aiming towards creating a
channel for communication and dialogue, and he achieved that," he said,
adding he would be "very surprised" if a transcript of the meeting was
released.
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Jul 20, 2018

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Trump invites Putin to US as Democrats call for Helsinki details
Trump invites Putin to US as Democrats call for Helsinki details
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