Tillerson: Trump Opened Meeting with Putin by Bringing Up Election Interference
Following President Trump‘s over-two-hour long meeting with Vladimir Putin, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that the issue of election interference was raised during the meeting.
In fact, according to reporters at the briefing, Tillerson said Trump opened with it:
TRUMP opened Putin meeting by raising concerns about 2016 election interference, Tillerson said. Pressed Putin repeatedly. Putin denied it.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 7, 2017
Breaking: Secretary of State Tillerson says President Trump & Putin had lengthy discussion on Russian interference in US election
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) July 7, 2017
NEW: Sec. Tillerson says Putin, POTUS talked "interference in democratic processes" of US and other countries.
— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) July 7, 2017
NEW (pt 2): Tillerson says @POTUS pressed Putin on more than one occasion about election interference (!!) Says Putin again denied it.
— Hallie Jackson (@HallieJackson) July 7, 2017
BREAKING: Tillerson says Trump opened meeting with Putin raising concern about Russian interference in US election; Putin denied role.
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 7, 2017
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov separately said this to reporters after the meeting:
Trump accepted Putin's assurances that Russia didn't do any hacking in US election, Lavrov says, in separate briefing with Russian press.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 7, 2017
UPDATE –– 2:01 pm ET: You can listen to the audio of Tillerson’s remarks below, via CNN:
At one point, the Secretary of State said, “What the two presidents––I think rightly––focused on is how to we move forward… Because it’s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution of that question between the two nations.”
[image via screengrab]
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