“Vladimir Putin told Russian diplomats that he made a proposal to Donald Trump at their summit this week to hold a referendum to help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but agreed not to disclose the plan publicly so the U.S. president could consider it,” Bloomberg reports.
“Details of what the two leaders discussed in their summit in Helsinki, Finland, remain scarce, with much of the description so far coming from Russia.”
President Trump said he is “looking forward” to meeting again with Russian President Vladimir Putin to “begin implementing” issues they discussed during their summit earlier this week, CNN reports.
“Putin has signaled in the wake of his summit with Trump that he and the US President reached several agreements, but neither Trump nor the White House have confirmed any substantive agreements between the two countries.”
Jonathan Chait: “Of equal significance, Trump is simultaneously depicting the news media, not Russia, as the genuine adversary of the public, while repeating his most authoritarian formulation for it (‘enemy of the people,’ a Soviet term that prefigured arrest or liquidation).”
President Trump accused the news media in a tweet of pushing for a confrontation with Russia.
Said Trump: “The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war. They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I’ll probably have a good relationship with Putin. We are doing MUCH better than any other country!”
New York Times: “The woman, Maria Butina, carried out her campaign through a series of deceptions that began in 2014, if not earlier, prosecutors said. She lied to obtain a student visa to pursue graduate work at American University in 2016. Apparently hoping for a work visa that would grant her a longer stay, she offered one American sex in exchange for a job. She moved in with a Republican political operative nearly twice her age, describing him as her boyfriend. But she privately expressed ‘disdain’ for him and had him do her homework, prosecutors said.”
“Two days after President Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian officials offered a string of assertions about what the two leaders had achieved,” the Washington Post reports.
“‘Important verbal agreements’ were reached at the Helsinki meeting, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told reporters in Moscow Wednesday, including preservation of the New Start and INF agreements, major bilateral arms control treaties whose futures have been in question.”
“But officials at the most senior levels across the U.S. military, scrambling since Monday to determine what Trump may have agreed to on national security issues in Helsinki, had little to no information Wednesday.”
President Trump claimed “that Russia is no longer targeting the United States, contradicting his top intelligence official who said the opposite earlier this week,” CNN reports.
New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s comments were the latest in a dizzying collection of conflicting statements from Mr. Trump since he emerged from a private meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday in Helsinki, Finland. “
Prosecutors said that a woman “charged with secretly acting on behalf of Russia was working as a covert agent in the United States and was recently in contact with a suspected Russian intelligence official,” the New York Times reports.
“The new details about the woman, Maria Butina, 29, were disclosed by prosecutors in a court filing arguing that she should be held without bond because she was a flight risk… The authorities disclosed that she was moving money out of the country, had her boxes packed and had terminated her lease.”
“Even before his plane touched down in Finland for a summit meeting with President Trump, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who was widely seen as coming out ahead at the meeting, had notched a victory in the air, the Estonian authorities say,” the New York Times reports.
“Estonia — small, vulnerable and at the northeastern rim of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s mutual security zone — has long been seen as a test case for the alliance’s willingness to resist Russian military moves.”
“For more than a decade, Russian military planes have regularly zipped through the edges of NATO airspace over the Baltic Sea off Estonia’s coast, in daring, high-stakes runs that taunt the alliance’s air defenses. While flying from Russia to Finland on Monday morning, Mr. Putin’s presidential plane entered NATO airspace without clearance over a portion of the Baltic Sea that is often the site of Russian military jet fly-bys.”
“A majority of Americans, 68 percent, consider Russia either unfriendly or an enemy of the United States,” according to a new NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll.
“That’s a 9 percent increase from one year ago, when 59 percent of Americans said they considered Russia either unfriendly or an enemy, signaling that attitudes toward Russia have worsened amid President Trump’s administration and the federal probe into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.”
”The poll was conducted just prior to Trump’s Monday news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
“Republicans scrambled on Tuesday to mitigate the damage done by President Trump’s embrace of President Vladimir Putin of Russia over his own intelligence agencies, setting a public hearing in the Senate next week, examining new sanctions on Moscow and reaffirming the fraying Western alliance,” the New York Times reports.
Many Republicans found themselves wrestling with an unwelcome dilemma two years in the making: They could publicly undermine the president and risk upsetting the loyal Trump voters they need to win elections, or they could stifle their own long-held beliefs that Russia is a dangerous actor set on destabilizing the United States. At least some were dealing with a moment they helped create: Since the summer of 2016, they have abetted the president’s refusal to recognize Russia’s actions by initiating their own attacks on those who would expose the Kremlin’s efforts.
Washington Post: “Even lawmakers and strategists who have been skeptical that the Russia investigations would motivate swing voters said Tuesday that the president’s decision to publicly question the conclusions of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies while standing at Putin’s side represented a watershed political moment.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 55% of Americans disapprove of the way President Trump is handling relations with Russia, while 37% approved, in a survey conducted after his controversial summit and joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, among Republicans, 71% approved of his handling of Russia compared to just 14% of Democrats.
The Salt Lake Tribune, which is owned by U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman’s brother Paul, has a column calling on Jon Huntsman to quit his post:
As Utahns, many of us were a bit stunned last year when you accepted the job as U.S. ambassador to Russia, but your explanation made sense: It was a role you took on, much like your tenure in China, out of a deep sense of duty.
But that duty is to your country and the best way now to serve your country is not by holding on to some title and being the emissary of a president who doesn’t share your values, or American values, for that matter.
It’s by resigning immediately and speaking out against a president who attacks our allies, gives comfort to our adversaries and undermines our moral standing, our commitment to democratic ideals and our interest in human rights every time he opens his gaping mouth.
Washington Post: “Administration officials had hoped that maybe, just maybe, Monday’s summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladmir Putin would end differently — without a freewheeling 46-minute news conference in which Trump attacked his own FBI on foreign soil and warmly praised archrival Russia.”
“Ahead of the meeting, staffers provided Trump with some 100 pages of briefing materials aimed at laying out a tough posture toward Putin, but the president ignored most of it… Trump’s remarks were ‘very much counter to the plan,’ one adviser said.”
“‘Everyone around Trump’ was urging him to take a firm stance with Putin.”
John Shattuck: “According to the law, the federal crime of treason is committed by a person ‘owing allegiance to the United States who… adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.’ Misprision (abetting) of treason is committed if a person ‘having knowledge of the commission of treason conceals and does not disclose’ the crime.”
“Today the evidence of Russian cyberattacks against the US democratic process is overwhelming… The president’s hostility to the US investigation of Russian cyberattacks, his failure to impose a cost on Russia for the attacks, his denigration of US alliances, and his eagerness to have ‘an extraordinary relationship’ with the Russian leader all point toward giving aid and comfort to an enemy.”
Max Boot: “In the past, the only people who questioned the loyalty of U.S. presidents were crazy conspiracy theorists such as the John Birchers, who accused President Dwight Eisenhower of being a Russian agent — or the birthers, including Trump, who questioned whether President Barack Obama was really born in the United States. But today the question of where the president’s loyalties lie is a legitimate one, and it will only grow in urgency after Putin deflected the question about whether he had kompromat on Trump.”
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“President Trump will sit down with two Fox News hosts for his first interviews following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” The Hill reports.
“Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson will each conduct separate interviews with Trump in Helsinki on Monday after Trump and Putin conclude their meeting.”
Almost missed during some extremely awkward body language before their one-on-one meeting was President Trump’s wink to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Guardian: “Putin’s motorcade has arrived late at the presidential palace in Helsinki for the summit. There’s been no sign yet of Trump. He now appears to be trying to make Putin wait.”
“There’s lots of this macho stuff: Putin’s limo is slightly bigger than Trump’s.”
Andrew Roth notes Putin often keeps world leaders waiting.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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