Trump Says He ‘Hadn’t Thought’ About Asking Putin to Extradite 12 Indicted Russians

July 15, 2018

KILMARNOCK, Scotland — President Trump, again seeking to lower expectations about his coming meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, said on Sunday that he “hadn’t thought” about asking for the extradition of the 12 Russian intelligence officers indicted on charges of hacking Democratic Party organizations in an effort to influence the 2016 election.

“Well, I might,” Mr. Trump said during an interview with “CBS Evening News” conducted on Saturday by the anchor Jeff Glor at the president’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, and scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday. “But I certainly, I’ll be asking about it.”

The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia.

Rather than deliver a strong message to the Russians, Mr. Trump again cast the concept of American cybersecurity as a partisan issue rather than a national one, and he appeared to jeer over 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. And 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 the one-on-one meeting, scheduled for Monday in Helsinki, Finland.

As his NATO allies watched in Brussels, Trump declined to call Mr. Putin an enemy or a friend, but referred to him as a “competitor.” And in a joint news conference with Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain on Friday, Mr. Trump said that he would bring up the issue of Russia meddling in the election. But he again emphasized his wish to get along with Mr. Putin, among other leaders whose actions have been hostile to the NATO alliance.

“I will absolutely bring up ‘meddling,’ ” Mr. Trump said as Ms. May looked on. “Hopefully, we will have a very good relationship with Russia, China and other countries.”

The CBS interview was conducted during a week that saw Mr. Trump publicly 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.

He said that “the fake news doesn’t want to talk about” American 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, before once again expressing his desire to get along with Mr. Putin.

This month, two Britons were poisoned in Amesbury, England, by Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent, near the site of the earlier poisoning, in Salisbury, England. Britain has blamed Moscow for the attack on the former Russian 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 appeared to have received a respectful audience with Mr. Trump. Ahead of a friendly interview on Air Force One on Friday, Piers 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.”