{"id":28507,"date":"2017-07-08T13:30:17","date_gmt":"2017-07-08T20:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=28507"},"modified":"2017-07-08T13:30:17","modified_gmt":"2017-07-08T20:30:17","slug":"trump-played-his-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/08\/trump-played-his-part\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Played His Part"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever world leaders meet, there are invariably stenographers and\/or a video recording system in the room to preserve an accurate record of what takes place in the meeting.  However, when Putin met with Trump the two agreed in advance to collude on the absence of such a record.  They both wanted a situation in which each side could tell their separate tales of what happened, neither of which was true.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"0708Putin-and-Trump\"<\/p>\n

After months of questioning whether Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election, President Donald Trump raised the explosive topic Friday in his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the men had a \u201crobust and lengthy exchange\u201d on the question of Russian meddling. But Putin denied any involvement, Tillerson said, adding that the Russians had asked for proof that they were to blame for the campaign of cyberattacks\u2014and the secretary of state stressed the need for the two countries to \u201cmove forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution,\u201d said Tillerson, who joined the Trump-Putin meeting along with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. He added that improving the U.S.-Russia relationship is \u201ctoo important not to find a way forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Associated Press reported that Lavrov said after the meeting that Trump had accepted Putin\u2019s assurances that the Kremlin had not sought to interfere in the 2016 election\u2014and Putin himself didn\u2019t mention it at all in a brief comment as he moved to his next event, with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: \u201cI had a very long conversation with the President of the United States. Many issues have piled up: Ukraine, Syria, other problems, some bilateral issues, and once again the fight against terrorism and security measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth did little to lift the cloud that\u2019s hung over Trump since he took office in January\u2014or to clarify whether Trump\u2019s desire for a better relationship with Putin, whom he praised effusively on the campaign trail, will be realized…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From <Politico<\/a>><\/font><\/p>\n

In fact, Putin got everything he wanted, and Trump got only the assertion by Rex Tillerson, winner of Russia’s Man of the Year Award, that Trump had pressed the issue.<\/font><\/p>\n

Experts David Filipov, Julianne Smith, and Michael McFaul joined Ari Melber to agree that the meeting was a victory for the Russians.<\/font><\/p>\n