MSNBC Host Says Karoline Leavitt Looked ‘Ashen, Almost Frightened’ After Putin Summit
MSNBC host Antonia Hilton claimed Saturday that President Donald Trump’s aides appeared “frightened” by their experience at the Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin.
“A lot of the press corps that was there, they reported in the minutes and hours after the presser that they saw members of the administration, like Karoline Leavitt, look ashen, almost frightened after what they had seen behind closed doors. What did that indicate to you?” she asked former Russian ambassador Michael McFaul.
“Well, first, we should all be glad that we did not go to Alaska, because I was in Helsinki with you. And I was in Geneva when President [Joe] Biden met. They traveled a long ways for nothing in return.”
McFaul continued:
But that suggests to me that this was a bigger disaster than they’re leading on. To your point, they’re trying to spin it, although they’re not even trying to spin it. That’s a really interesting thing. When I worked at the White House and we would have meetings like this, I was the SAO — the senior administration official — that would call up journalists, that would call The New York Times to say, “This is what was discussed,” to push it this way. They’re not even attempting to do that because they know they don’t have anything to work with.
Earlier in the interview, McFaul claimed Trump has yet to get anything useful out of Putin.
“I was trying to think of a time with all of this engagement, with all this friendship and the clapping when he comes up that President Trump has done, both in his first term and now in his second term, is there one tangible thing that the American people have gotten out of all of that? Are we more secure? Are we wealthier? Are we defending our values better?” McFaul asked.
“I can’t think of one deliverable, as we used to say in the State Department, that we’ve achieved from that strategy. So I hope he changes his strategy because this strategy is not working.”
Watch the clip above via MSNBC.
