Trump believes Putin over his own intelligence agencies
President Trump stated on Saturday that he is not going to keep confronting Russian President Putin over election meddling because it insults the Russian leader.
He went on to say that he trusts Putin when he said that Russia did not interfere in the US presidential election. US intelligence agencies have stated very clearly that Russia did, in fact, seek to meddle in the election in a number of ways.
Trump said that the topic came up recently when the two leaders met though Putin’s spokesman said it did not. He went on to say that there are more important issues for the two men to discuss.
“He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One.
“Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,'” Trump stated. “And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”
“I think he is very insulted by it,” Trump went on to say.
Despite Trump’s words of trust, the Trump Russia investigation as to whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is getting closer and closer to his inner circle.
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While on the plane, after leaving Da Nang on his Asia trip, Trump said, “There was no collusion. Everybody knows there was no collusion,” Trump firmly stated. “I think it’s a shame that something like that could destroy a very important potential relationship between two countries that are really important countries.”
He also said that he and Putin “have the potential to have a very, very good relationship.”
Trump brought up some of the men who claimed that Russia did, in fact, meddle in the election. He mentioned James Comey, John Brennan and James Clapper.
“I mean, give me a break, they are political hacks,” Trump said. “So you look at it, I mean, you have Brennan, you have Clapper and you have Comey. Comey is proven now to be a liar and he is proven now to be a leaker. So you look at that and you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with them.”
Since those comments, the CIA has released a statement saying that the man who Trump himself picked to lead the CIA, Mike Pompeo, also believes that Russia did meddle.
