Donald Trump’s idea to invite Vladimir Putin to the White House later this year wasn’t well received, coming as it did just three days (give or take) after the press conference in Helsinki during which Trump appeared to suggest he trusted the Kremlin’s assessment of election meddling more than he trusted that of the U.S. intelligence community.
It’s not entirely clear why the White House thought it was a good idea to announce the invite just 72 hours after the summit in Finland, considering lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were still fuming about Trump’s performance and also considering the President spent Tuesday and Wednesday of last week tying himself in rhetorical knots trying to explain what he does and doesn’t believe about election interference.
For his part, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was more than a little surprised when, right in the middle of an interview at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado last Thursday, he was informed about the administration’s plans to invite Putin to the White House.
Earlier in the week, Coats directly refuted comments Trump made during the press conference and the moment he learned about the Putin White House invite, he laughed at Trump on national television.
Coats would later apologize after multiple media reports suggested his job was in jeopardy.
Republican lawmakers made it abundantly clear that Putin, should he actually show up in D.C., would not be welcome on Capitol Hill. Mitch McConnell, who last week called the evidence of Russian election meddling “indisputable”, said that while he can “only speak for the Congress, I have made it clear that Putin will not be welcome up here, at the Capitol.”
For his part, Paul Ryan said this on Tuesday:
We will certainly not be giving him an invitation to do a joint session.
No, “certainly not”, for reasons that are obvious to everyone besides Donald Trump.
Fast forward to Thursday and Putin’s visit has been put on hold, with the White House citing the “witch hunt”. And yes, I’m serious. This is an actual statement from John Bolton:
The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.
While you can speculate on the myriad other reasons Trump decided to postpone this, one possibility is that the Kremlin actually declined the invitation. Here’s what Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Tuesday:
After the (Helsinki) summit you know what kind of atmosphere there is around its outcome. I think it would be wise to let the dust settle and then we can discuss all these questions in a business-like way. But not now.
Nothing further.
