‘I Really Believe Him’: Trump Sides with ‘Very Insulted’ Putin Over US Intelligence Agencies on Election Meddling

“And I Believe, I Really Believe, That When He Tells Me That, He Means It”

Donald Trump on Saturday told traveling reporters aboard Air Force One that he believes a “very insulted” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that Russia did not meddle in the 2016 presidential election.

All 17 U.S. government intelligence agencies have unanimously agreed that Russia worked to disrupt Americans’ opinions in an attempt to install a candidate Putin preferred—namely, Donald Trump.

“He said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times,” CNN reported the president told reporters amid their flight from Da Nang to Hanoi in Vietnam. They further reported that Trump and Putin spoke three times on summit sidelines.

“Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that,'” Trump continued. “And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.”

“I think it’s a shame that something like that could destroy a very important potential relationship between two countries that are really important countries,” he continued, noting as well that “this is really an artificial barrier that’s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia.”

“He says that very strongly, he really seems to be insulted by it and says he didn’t do it,” Trump advised. “He is very, very strong in the fact that he didn’t do it. You have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he has nothing to do with that. Now, you are not going to get into an argument, you are going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine.”

The president continued by insisting “there was no collusion,” falsely claiming that “everybody knows there was no collusion” and attacking Democrats. “The whole thing was set up by the Democrats,” Trump said, to “distract from their electoral losses.”

Putin’s press secretary Dmitri Peskov told CNN that the two leaders did not discuss meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

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