May 4, 2019

Trump Brags About Call With Putin, Sees Potential for “Great Relationship With Russia”

He didn’t bother telling Putin not to meddle in the next election.

President Donald Trump speaks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during their 2018 summit in Helsinki.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump has received a lot criticism for his overly friendly relationship with Vladamir Putin. But that didn’t stop Trump from taking to Twitter Saturday to brag about his latest phone call with the Russian strongman.

On Friday, Trump tweeted that he had a “very good conversation” with Putin about a number of issues, including the “Russian Hoax”—a reference to special counsel Robert Mueller’s recently concluded investigation into Russian contacts with Trump’s 2016 campaign and Trump’s subsequent efforts to interfere with the probe.

Later, when Trump was asked by a reporter at the White House whether he had asked Putin during the call not to interfere in the upcoming presidential election, Trump said, “We didn’t discuss that.” It was a remarkable admission, given that Russia’s 2016 hacking and disinformation campaign—which was intended to help Trump win the presidency—was at the center of Mueller’s investigation. Trump sparked a furor last year when, at a joint press conference with Putin, he publicly called into question his own intelligence officials’ conclusions about Russian meddling.

On Saturday, Trump bragged again about this week’s call, saying that it showed “tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with Russia.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate