Trump To Putin: 'I'm Going to Get This Out of the Way: Did You Do This?'
Source: Mediaite
by Jon Levine | 11:43 am, July 9th, 2017
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Reporting from The New York Times’ Glenn Thrush suggests that Trump had no intention of beating around the bush or standing on any ceremony about it. According to Thrush, the 45th President bluntly asked Putin straight up at the start of their meeting.
“I’m going to get this out of the way: Did you do this?” asked Trump.
Putin’s response — you guessed it — was no. The exchange itself was a matter of hot dispute for the two sides. Per NYT:
<< Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, the only high-level American official allowed in the room with the president, had urged his boss to hit Mr. Putin hard on the issue — but told an associate he was still stunned that Mr. Trump would begin the meeting, unceremoniously, by saying to the Russian leader, “I’m going to get this out of the way: Did you do this?”
Mr. Tillerson’s Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, later told reporters that Mr. Trump hadn’t been nearly that confrontational on the question of Russian meddling. “U.S. President Trump said that he heard firm assertions from Russian President Putin that it is not true and that Russian authorities have not meddled in the elections,” Mr. Lavrov told journalists at the summit.
Mr. Trump “said that he accepts these assertions — that’s it,” the foreign minister said. He said Mr. Trump had complained about opponents who sought to “exaggerate” the level of Moscow’s involvement. >>
Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-to-putin-im-going-to-get-this-out-of-the-way-did-you-do-this/
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Now we can resume business as usual. Thanks Drumpf!
Vlad said no. On to our cooperation in cybersecurity! What could possibly go wrong? 
