Most of Donald Trump’s remarks and accompanying tweets during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 16 July were predictably outrageous and self-serving. But amid all of the resulting negative press, Trump may have actually said one of the smartest things that has ever come out of his mouth.
Trump’s controversial comments
The joint summit held in Helsinki between the US president and his Russian counterpart has received an overwhelmingly negative reception from commentators and congress members from across the political spectrum. Amongst Trump’s statements during the talks was his dismissal of his own country’s intelligence community’s contention that Russian meddling took place during the 2016 election. The move was widely seen as him siding with Putin and was denounced as “treasonous” by former CIA director John Brennan. Trump said that US intelligence personnel “came to me and… they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.”
