Trump-Putin Summit Shows Why the President Is Ahead of the Curve

Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump

By Robert Romano   President Donald Trump will be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on July 16. There the two will discuss nuclear weapons and U.S.-Russian relations. This is not only the right time to cool tensions between the two foremost nuclear powers — who have clashed over Syria, Ukraine and other potential hotspots — but also the right time politically for Trump to take to the international stage. Coming off a successful summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, achieving an agreement in principle to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, President Trump’s popularity is soaring. He has the political capital to meet with Putin. Trump’s surge, simultaneously stunning and perplexing to D.C. elites — but not to his supporters — comes as he does not appear to be hampered even in the slightest by the ongoing Russia investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Probably because there was no collusion. But not only does Trump have the political capital to meet with Putin from a position of strength, it is politically smart for him to do it. Peace is popular. Not only is this what Trump ran on in 2016 — achieving a better relationship with American adversaries…

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Kremlin: Trump, Putin Will Meet for Summit

Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin

Kremlin officials say there is an agreement for Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump to hold a summit in a third country. The announcement came Wednesday as U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton was in Moscow for talks with Putin and other senior Russian officials. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said details about the venue for a Trump-Putin summit would be announced Thursday. The meeting is expected to take place after Trump attends the NATO summit July 11 and 12 and visits Britain on July 13. Vienna and Helsinki are among the venues being considered. Earlier, Putin told Bolton that his visit to Moscow increased the chances of a restoration of Russian-U.S. relations. Putin said relations between the two countries were “not in the best shape.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters “the sad state” of bilateral relations between the two countries would be discussed, as well as a range of international issues. Bolton had said he hoped his one-day visit would lay the groundwork for what would be the first summit between Putin and Trump. Trump and Putin have met twice on the sidelines of international summits and have spoken several times by telephone. Washington-Moscow relations…

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Report: Plans Underway for Possible Trump-Putin Summit

Trump and Putin

White House officials are making plans for a possible summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report, citing a senior administration official, said U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, has been in Washington to help schedule the meeting. “This has been an ongoing project of Ambassador Huntsman, stretching back months, of getting a formal meeting between Putin and Trump,” the official said. People familiar with the plans said the purpose of the summit would be to address long-standing differences between the two countries. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the intent of helping Trump win. The findings have led to a special counsel investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. Trump has denied any collusion. The U.S. also has denounced Russia’s alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has expressed opposition to Moscow’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine. Tensions between Washington and Moscow escalated in March when the U.S. and dozens of other nations ordered Russian diplomats to leave their countries after a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned in the United Kingdom with a military-grade nerve…

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More Diplomat Ousters in Spy Poisoning Row

Russia on Saturday demanded that Britain further reduce its diplomatic staff in Moscow, the latest move in an escalating tit-for-tat dispute following the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil. Russia had already kicked out 23 British envoys and closed a British consulate in response to the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats by Britain, which accuses Moscow of poisoning former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.

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President Trump Expels 60 Russian Officials Over UK Nerve-Agent Attack

President Trump expelled 60 Russian intelligence officers Monday and closed Russia’s consulate in Seattle in response to Moscow’s nerve-agent attack on a British former double agent in England. In one of his most dramatic confrontations with Moscow on its covert actions, Mr. Trump ordered the expulsion of 48 officials working at the Russian Embassy in Washington, and 12 intelligence officers assigned to Russia’s mission at the United Nations in New York City.

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Mark Halperin: Trump ‘Tougher’ on Russia Than Previous Presidents

Author and senior NBC News political analyst Mark Halperin said that in many ways, President Donald Trump’s administration has “been tougher” on Russia than those of his predecessors, during an interview Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.” The cloud of Russia-collusion allegations has hung over Trump’s presidency ever since reports surfaced that the Russians meddled in…

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White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus: Trump Did Not Accept Putin’s Denial of Meddling

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus denied Sunday that President Trump accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim at the G20 summit that the Kremlin did not meddle in last year’s U.S. election. “The president absolutely did not believe the denial of President Putin,” Mr. Priebus told “Fox News Sunday.” However, Mr. Priebus reissued the White…

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Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin Face-Off at G-20: ‘Very, Very Good Talks’

Trump and Putin

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down for their first face-to-face meeting Friday for highly anticipated talks that Mr. Trump said were “going well,” even as both leaders looked to project power and cooperation to audiences at home and around the globe. “President Putin and I have been discussing various things, and I think…

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