U.S. President Donald Trump was praised by Fox News host Sean Hannity following the president’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite backlash from several top Republican lawmakers.
Trump sat down with the Fox News personality shortly after a two-hour meeting with the Russian president in Helsinki, Finland.
READ MORE: Top Republicans blast Trump over Putin summit
“Mr. President, it’s good to see you,” Hannity said. “You literally just finished the press conference with President Putin moments ago. A lot came up and you were very strong at the end of that press conference.
“You said, ‘Where are the servers? What about what Peter Strzok says? Where are the 33,000 emails?’” Hannity said.
Following their meeting, Putin and Trump had fiery responses to questions over Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in a press conference following their summit.
“President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump said, later adding he doesn’t see “any reason why” Russia would interfere.
During the interview with Fox News, the president said Russia has “no information on Trump.”
READ MORE: Security officials say Trump-Putin summit was ‘nothing short of treasonous’
“Well, first of all, he said there was no collusion whatsoever. I guess he said as strongly as you can say it, they have no information on Trump,” the president said. “You know, many years ago when I was there — what was it, ’13 — a long time ago. He said there were many, many business people there.
“In all fairness, I was a very successful businessman, but I was one of a lot of people. And one thing you know, if they had it, it would have been out,” Trump said.
Trump also called Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the matter a “disaster for our country” during the Helsinki press conference.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and former government staff, slammed the president following the news conference, with some saying he committed treason.
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to take action following Trump’s speech.
“The president sided with Vladimir Putin’s denial over the unanimous, unanimous conclusion from the United States intelligence community. He took the word of the KGB over the men and women of the CIA,” Sen. Schumer said.
It’s time for Trump to sit down for an interview with Mueller, Schumer said.
READ MORE: Senators in disbelief as Donald Trump takes ‘the word of the KGB’ over the CIA
“We need answers, we need them now.”
Republican Sen. John McCain said the news conference was “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”
“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant,” the Republican said. “Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are — a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad.”
After criticism started coming in, Trump tweeted that he did agree with U.S. intelligence, but wanted to move forward instead of focusing on the past.
“As I said today and many times before, “I have GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people.” However, I also recognize that in order to build a brighter future, we cannot exclusively focus on the past – as the world’s two largest nuclear powers, we must get along!” he wrote.
Comments