Putin Says Trump’s Critics in U.S. Are Trying to Undermine Meeting

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President Vladimir V. Putin addressing a group of Russian ambassadors on Thursday in Moscow. He addressed the Russian view that a “deep state” of national security elites is dominating American politics.CreditSergei Karpukhin/Reuters

By Andrew E. Kramer

July 19, 2018

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia warned on Thursday that certain political forces in the United States — a formulation that usually refers to a supposed anti-Russian cabal in the American national security establishment — were trying to undermine what he called a successful meeting this week with President Trump.

“We see that there are forces in the United States that can easily sacrifice Russian-U.S. relations for the sake of their own ambitions,” Mr. Putin said in a foreign policy speech to Russian ambassadors. “Let’s see how the events develop, especially considering that certain forces are trying to disavow the results of the meeting in Helsinki.”

The comments came after Mr. Trump, who was criticized by representatives from both parties for suggesting that he had accepted Russian denials of interference in the 2016 election, contrary to the conclusions of American intelligence agencies, sought to clarify his comments at a cabinet meeting in Washington. Mr. Trump said that, in fact, he did accept the agencies’ conclusions.

Russia, while developing its foreign policy toward the United States, should consider the efforts of a “quite powerful” group in Washington that seeks to undermine good relations between the countries, Mr. Putin said on Thursday.

The comments were some of the most extensive to date by Mr. Putin about the Russian view about whether a “deep state” of national security elites dominates American politics and conspiring to thwart Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump, too, seemed to feel that the talks in Finland were fruitful and underappreciated. “The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media,” he said on Twitter. “I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear.”

This was not the first time Mr. Trump described journalists as the “enemy of the people,” a phrase with a long and complicated history in the former Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev, a war-hardened communist not known for squeamishness, demanded an end to the use of the term in 1956 because it was, he said, “specifically introduced for the purpose of physically annihilating” those who disagreed with Stalin.

Other Russian officials have for months spoken darkly of plots in America against Mr. Trump, echoing the American leader’s own criticisms of the special counsel investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with members of Mr. Trump’s campaign team as the work of the “deep state.”

“We see that there are forces in the United States that put their own group and narrow partisan interests above the national ones,” Mr. Putin said. “Our renowned satirists once wrote very well about such people: ‘Pathetic, paltry people.’ But this is not so in this particular case: These people are not pathetic and not paltry. On the contrary, they are quite powerful and strong if they can, excuse my crudeness, force-feed millions of their people various stories that are hard to digest in normal logic.”

In speaking of “pathetic, paltry people” in reference to opponents of Mr. Trump’s Russia policies, Mr. Putin appeared to be quoting from the book “The Twelve Chairs” by the Russian satirists Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, using a derisive phrase that is familiar to readers of Russian literature.

Follow Andrew E. Kramer on Twitter: @AndrewKramerNYT.