For Putin, Who Has Swayed Trump Before, Meeting Is Chance to Reset Ties
At a news conference after meeting privately with the Russian leader, Mr. Trump sided with Mr. Putin on whether the Kremlin had meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
'President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be,' Mr. Trump said, contradicting his own intelligence officials before recounting discredited conspiracy theories.
Top Republicans were horrified. Senator John McCain called it a 'disgraceful performance.' Mr. Trump's own national security adviser at the time, John R. Bolton, would later write that 'Putin had to be laughing uproariously at what he had gotten away with in Helsinki.'
Mr. Trump plans to see Mr. Putin on Friday in Alaska for the first time since his return to the White House to discuss the U.S. president's goal of ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. With Mr. Putin pressing peace proposals that heavily favor Russia, many analysts and former Trump officials worry that he will once again turn a meeting with Mr. Trump to his advantage.
During Mr. Trump's first term, he and Mr. Putin met six times in person and had several more phone conversations. (His successor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., met Mr. Putin only once, in June 2021, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.)
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