On Eve of Talks, Trump Congratulates Putin and Calls E.U. a Trade ‘Foe’

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President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017.CreditMarcellus Stein/Associated Press

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Katie Rogers

July 15, 2018

HELSINKI, Finland — President Trump spent the eve of his first summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia finding fault with allies, Barack Obama and the news media while refraining from condemning Moscow for its assault on the 2016 presidential election.

His actions raised the stakes for an encounter that will come days after 12 Russian intelligence agents were indicted on charges that they sought to thwart American democracy.

Saying he was looking forward to the meetings in Helsinki, Finland’s capital, which he hopes will lead to warmer relations with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump indicated that he did not plan to use his time with the Russian president to press him on the election interference.

He said it had never occurred to him to demand the extradition of the indicted agents to the United States to face charges. Instead, he appeared to blame Mr. Obama, his predecessor, for allowing the attacks to occur.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with CBS that was broadcast on Sunday when asked about the possibility of requesting extradition of the Russians.

Of the hacking itself, Mr. Trump said: “Certainly, I’ll be asking about it, but again, this was during the Obama administration. They were doing whatever it was during the Obama administration.”

[Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain says President Trump advised her to “sue the E.U.”]

Later, as Air Force One carried him from Scotland — where he had spent the weekend at his golf resort — to Helsinki for the closely watched encounter with Mr. Putin, who has cracked down on reporters in Russia, Mr. Trump lashed out at the American news media. He said that they would never give him credit for a successful summit meeting and branded many journalists “the enemy of the people.”

“Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia, over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough — that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!” Mr. Trump said in a pair of tweets. “Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people.”

The comments appeared to be an effort to pre-empt criticism of his performance at the meeting, and it coincided with attempts by members of his administration to play down expectations. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the United States ambassador to Russia, said on Sunday that the event should not even be called a “summit” because the two presidents were not seeking to forge an agreement about any particular topic.

“It isn’t a summit,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” only hours before Mr. Trump’s Twitter post calling it just that. “This is a meeting.”

The disconnect in terminology was only the latest sign of the gulf between the president and his government in dealing with Russia: Mr. Trump has sought a friendship with Mr. Putin, while his administration regards him as a dangerous adversary who must be countered.

In recent days, Mr. Trump focused his fire on some of the United States’ closest allies during a swing through Europe that was marked by attacks on NATO members during a summit gathering in Brussels and a humiliating slight to Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on her own soil.

Asked during the CBS interview who he considered to be his biggest foe globally, he named the European Union, citing “what they do to us on trade.” Mr. Trump added: “Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe. Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly a foe.”

In response, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, wrote in a sharp riposte on Twitter: “America and the E.U. are best friends. Whoever says we are foes is spreading fake news.”

Before leaving his Turnberry resort in Scotland on Sunday, Mr. Trump spent two days golfing and, he said, taking meetings and calls in preparation for the meeting with Mr. Putin here. Instead of delivering a stern message to the Russians, as some Republicans and diplomatic officials have hoped he would, Mr. Trump again cast American cybersecurity as a partisan issue rather than a national one.

He also appeared to jeer the hacking of the Democratic National Committee servers.

“We had much better defenses,” Mr. Trump said, suggesting that the Russians could not hack the Republican National Committee. “I think the D.N.C. should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked.”

The president has given a series of interviews and news conferences during his European trip this past week at the NATO summit meeting in Brussels and during a working visit to England. In each, he has sought to play down the meeting with Mr. Putin. He has also declined to harshly criticize the Russian president ahead of their one-on-one meeting. (The two will also have a larger meeting with advisers and a lunch before holding a joint news conference.)

Mr. Trump’s interview with “CBS Evening News” was conducted on Saturday by the anchor Jeff Glor at the president’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.CreditAndrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated Press

On Sunday, Mr. Trump congratulated Mr. Putin on Twitter “for putting on a truly great World Cup Tournament — one of the best ever!”

Mr. Trump’s conciliatory tone was on display all this past week: As his NATO allies watched in Brussels, he declined to call the Russian leader an enemy or a friend, but referred to him as a “competitor.”

In a joint news conference with Ms. May on Friday, Mr. Trump said he would bring up the issue of Russian interference in the election, but he joked about Mr. Putin’s denials and again emphasized his wish to get along.

“I will absolutely bring up ‘meddling,’ ” Mr. Trump said as Mrs. May looked on. “I will absolutely firmly ask the question. And, hopefully, we’ll have a very good relationship with Russia.”

The CBS interview was conducted during a week that saw Mr. Trump lashing out at several news outlets for publishing what he described as “fake news” — including his own on-the-record and recorded quotes in The Sun, a British tabloid.

He also targeted individual journalists for trying to ask him questions about his strategy with Russia. At one point, he disparaged an NBC journalist for asking him whether he was giving Mr. Putin the upper hand after a week spent bashing the United States’ closest allies, a prime concern of many experienced diplomats, as well as current and former administration officials.

He said that “the fake news doesn’t want to talk about” his administration’s efforts to increase pressure on Russia for its hostile behavior, including expelling 60 Russian officials from the United States in March over the poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil. “We have been very strong on Russia,” Mr. Trump said.

This month, two Britons were poisoned in Amesbury, England, by Novichok, a Soviet-developed nerve agent, near the site of the earlier poisoning, in Salisbury, England. Britain has blamed Moscow for the attack on the former spy and his daughter in Salisbury. Moscow has strenuously denied any involvement.

One victim of the second poisoning, Dawn Sturgess, died. On Sunday, her 19-year-old son, Ewan Hope, was quoted in The Sunday Mirror as saying: “I don’t share Donald Trump’s politics and I’ll never be a supporter of his, but I would like him to raise mum’s case with the Russian president. We need to get justice for my mum.”

During his whirlwind tour of Europe this past week, at least one news personality, Piers Morgan, appeared to have received a respectful audience with Mr. Trump. Ahead of a friendly interview on Air Force One on Friday, Mr. Morgan, there on behalf of The Daily Mail, toddled around, trying to touch the electronics on a plane that is equipped to allow the president to run a nuclear war from the air. He also tried to sit in a chair designated for the president.

After marveling over the Trump-branded M&Ms he found on the plane, Mr. Morgan met with the president, discussing his “uniquely impulsive and charismatic” healthier diet (baked salmon and a lemon bar), the first lady, Melania Trump — “I hope she never runs against me,” he said — and Mr. Trump’s audience with Queen Elizabeth II.

"She’s a fantastic woman,” Mr. Trump said of the 92-year-old monarch. “So much energy and smart and sharp. She was amazing.”

Mr. Morgan eventually brought up Mr. Putin, asking if Mr. Trump considered him a ruthless dictator.

“I assume he probably is,” Mr. Trump replied. “I think we could probably get along very well.”

Mr. Trump’s friendly approach contrasted with a harsher stance by members of his own administration. In an interview broadcast on Sunday morning in the United States, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, appeared to contradict Mr. Trump’s suggestion he would bring up the subject of extradition.

“I think it’s pretty silly for the president to demand something that he can’t get legally,” Mr. Bolton said on ABC’s “This Week.” “For the president to demand something that isn’t going to happen puts the president in a weak position.”

Mr. Bolton pointed to the legal obstacles in extraditing Russian citizens: The lack of an extradition treaty with Russia. “You know, the Russians take the position — you can like it or not like it — that their Constitution forbids them to extradite Russian citizens,” he said.

Mr. Bolton, who is traveling with Mr. Trump in Europe, said that one alternative could be using Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, for “red notices,” or requests for an arrest pending an extradition. He also said he expected the Justice Department to take steps to arrest the Russians.

Mr. Huntsman Jr., the American ambassador, said that the F.B.I. office in the United States Embassy “no doubt will work on” extraditing the Russians, but that there was no guarantee of compliance. “Requests can be made — that doesn’t necessarily mean the Russians will follow through with it,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Julie Davis reported from Helsinki, Finland, and Katie Rogers from Kilmarnock, Scotland. Noah Weiland contributed reporting from Washington.