The United States President, Donald Trump has hit out at the mainstream news media for criticizing him on the way he handled his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin during the Helsinki summit last week.
As is normal with the US President, he retaliated with a tweet saying, “I got severely criticized by the Fake News Media for being too nice to President Putin. In the Old Days they would call it Diplomacy. If I was loud & vicious, I would have been criticized for being too tough. Remember when they said I was too tough with Chairman Kim? Hypocrites!”
I got severely criticized by the Fake News Media for being too nice to President Putin. In the Old Days they would call it Diplomacy. If I was loud & vicious, I would have been criticized for being too tough. Remember when they said I was too tough with Chairman Kim? Hypocrites!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2018
Trump had started a huge political controversy following his comments on the alleged election meddling of the 2016 US Presidential election by Russia. At the joint Press conference with Putin he said that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign was “a disaster for our country,” while also saying that it had negatively impacted US-Russia relations. Later, he claimed that he “misspoke” on the issue.
Earlier last week, Trump had endorsed Putin’s stance on Russia’s non-involvement in the 2016 US Presidential election, insisting that he ran a clean campaign.
Addressing a joint Press conference with his Russian counterpart at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki after their summit, Trump had said that there was “zero collusion” and that he ran a “clean campaign.” The U-turn came only a day later.
Doing a complete turnaround, Trump on the very next day blamed Putin for Moscow’s alleged attempts in interfering in the 2016 election.
In a television interview, he had said that he held Putin “personally responsible” for the election interference.