Trump's friendly-to-frustrated relationship with Putin takes the spotlight at Alaska summit
Months before he was first elected president, Trump cast doubt on findings from US intelligence agencies that Russian government hackers had stolen emails from Democrats, including his opponent Hillary Clinton, and released them in an effort to hurt her campaign and boost Trump's.
In one 2016 appearance, he shockingly called on Russian hackers to find emails that Clinton had reportedly deleted.
'Russia, if you're listening,' Trump said, 'I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.'
Questions about his connections to Russia dogged much of his first term, touching off investigations by the Justice Department and Congress and leading to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, who secured multiple convictions against Trump aides and allies but did not establish proof of a criminal conspiracy between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
These days, Trump describes the Russia investigation as an affinity he and Putin shared.
'Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,' Trump said earlier this year. 'He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia, ever hear of that deal?'
Putin in 2019 mocked the investigation and its ultimate findings, saying, "A mountain gave birth to a mouse.'
'He just said it's not Russia'
Trump met with Putin six times during his first term, including a 2018 summit in Helsinki, when Trump stunned the world by appearing to side with an American adversary on the question of whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
'I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today," Trump said. 'He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."
Facing intense blowback, Trump tried to walk back the comment a full 24 hours later. But he raised doubt on that reversal by saying other countries could have also interfered.
Putin referred to Helsinki summit as 'the beginning of the path' back from Western efforts to isolate Russia. He also made clear that he had wanted Trump to win in 2016.
'Yes, I wanted him to win because he spoke of normalization of Russian-US ties,' Putin said. 'Isn't it natural to feel sympathy to a person who wanted to develop relations with our country?"
Trump calls Putin 'pretty smart' after invasion of Ukraine
The two leaders kept up their friendly relationship after Trump left the White House under protest in 2021.
After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Trump described the Russian leader in positive terms. 'I mean, he's taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I'd say that's pretty smart,' Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
In a radio interview that week, he suggested that Putin was going into Ukraine to 'be a peacekeeper.'
Trump repeatedly said the invasion of Ukraine would never have happened if he had been in the White House — a claim Putin endorsed while lending his support to Trump's false claims of election fraud.
'I couldn't disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn't stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided,' he said.
Trump also repeatedly boasted that he could have the fighting 'settled' within 24 hours. Through much of his campaign, Trump criticized US support for Ukraine and derided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a 'salesman' for persuading Washington to provide weapons and funding to his country.
Revisiting the relationship
Once he became president, Trump stopped claiming he'd solve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. In March, he said he was "being a little bit sarcastic' when he said that.
Since the early days of Trump's second term, Putin has pushed for a summit while trying to pivot from the Ukrainian conflict by emphasizing the prospect of launching joint US-Russian economic projects, among other issues. 'We'd better meet and have a calm conversation on all issues of interest to both the United States and Russia based on today's realities,' Putin said in January.
In February, things looked favorable for Putin when Trump had a blowup with Zelenskyy at the White House, berating him as 'disrespectful."
In late March, Trump still spoke of trusting Putin when it came to hopes for a ceasefire, saying, 'I don't think he's going to go back on his word." But a month later, as Russian strikes escalated, Trump posted a public and personal plea on his social media account: 'Vladimir, STOP!'
He began voicing more frustration with the Russian leader, saying he was 'Just tapping me along.' In May, he wrote on social media that Putin 'has gone absolutely CRAZY!'
Earlier this month, Trump ordered the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines 'based on the highly provocative statements' of the country's former president, Dmitry Medvedev.
Trump's vocal protests about Putin have tempered somewhat since he announced their meeting, but so have his predictions for what he might accomplish.
Speaking to reporters Monday, Trump described their upcoming summit not as the occasion in which he'd finally get the conflict 'settled' but instead as 'really a feel-out meeting, a little bit.'
'I think it'll be good,' Trump said. 'But it might be bad.'
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