President Donald Trump on Tuesday tried to appease the bipartisan anger triggered by his remarks in the just-concluded tour to Europe and his meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Finland.
While meeting with members of Congress at the White House, Trump defined the trip as a “peace through strength” tour that boosted deliverables.
He said that he had helped the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance greatly by “increasing defense contributions from our NATO allies by over 44 billion U.S. dollars.”
He also said that “there’s great unity with NATO” despite his harsh remarks towards allies.
“The press covered it quite inaccurately. They said I insulted people. Well, if asking for people to pay up money that they are supposed to pay is insulting, maybe I did,” said the White House host.
As for his meeting with Putin on July 16, Trump said the U.S.-Russian ties have gotten “substantially better” thanks to the meeting, and the two leaders have made significant progress toward addressing “some of the conflicts on Earth” such as Syria, Iran, and the reduction of nuclear weapons throughout the world.
“We hope that, at some point, Iran will call us and we’ll maybe make a new deal,” Trump said, adding that Russia has assured him of its support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“President Putin said he agrees with me 100 percent, and they’ll do whatever they have to do to try and make it happen,” he said, adding that there is no “time limit” or “speed limit” concerning the U.S. dialogue with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Despite his reluctantly stated acceptance of U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had meddled in the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said the meddler “could be other people also,” since “there’s a lot of people out there.”
He also managed to clarify his controversial statement in the press conference with Putin.
“The sentence should have been I don’t see any reason … why it wouldn’t be Russia. So just to repeat it, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t’,” said Trump. “The sentence should have been …sort of a double negative.”
He also vowed to “move aggressively” to repeal and repel any Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. 2018 elections, and ruled out the possibility of rolling back U.S. sanctions on Russia despite his meeting with Putin.
“Everything is remaining. We’re not lifting sanctions,” Trump said.
Trump’s damage control efforts have not so far been well accepted even within his own party. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that contrary to Trump’s earlier statements that Europe is one of U.S. “foes,” allies in the European Union are U.S. “friends” while “the Russians are not.”
“Make no mistake about it, I would say to our friends in Europe. We understand the Russian threat and I think that is the widespread view here in the United States Senate among members of both parties,” McConnell said, hinting the Congress may “take up legislation” related to Russia’s alleged interferences to prevent such thing from happening again.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker also tweeted that “it is time for Congress to step up and take back our authorities.”
“The dam is finally breaking. Thankfully. As the president taxes Americans with tariffs, he pushes away our allies and further strengthens Putin,” he said. “We have legislation to do that. Let’s vote.”
In one of the consequences of the Helsinki meeting, U.S. media reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will appear next Wednesday in an open hearing in front of Senate Foreign Relations Committee to testify on the Trump-Putin meeting.
