Search icon

News

19th Jul 2018

Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the White House

Shock.

Oli Dugmore

Shock

US President Donald Trump has asked his national security adviser to invite Vladimir Putin to visit the White House in the autumn.

HELSINKI, FINLAND - JULY 16: Russian President Vladimir Putin hands U.S. President Donald Trump (L) a World Cup football during a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. The two leaders met one-on-one and discussed a range of issues including the 2016 U.S E/Getty Images)

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted:”President Trump asked [national security adviser John Bolton] to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.”

She also said that Trump had “agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs” during the Helsinki summit between the two leaders on Monday.

Earlier on Thursday Trump said: “I look forward to our second meeting.”

The news follows Trump’s U-turn over whether Russia had meddled in the US’ 2016 election, having said when stood next to Putin that he believed in the Russian state’s innocence. He since stated that he had misspoke, and meant to say ‘wouldn’t’ instead of ‘would’ when he said: “My people came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”