President Donald Trump did not believe Russian President Vladimir Putin when he told him at their meeting in Hamburg, Germany that his government didn’t meddle in the 2016 American election, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told Fox News Sunday.
“The president absolutely did not believe the denial of President Putin,” Priebus said, in reaction to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s claim that Trump had “accepted” Putin’s assurances that Moscow was not behind the meddling. “What the president did is that he immediately came into the meeting, talked about Russian meddling in the U. S. election, went after that issue at least two separate times… this was an extensive portion of the meeting, and after going at it with President Putin…. the president at that point went on to other topics.”
Priebus reiterated that although Trump believes that Russia did interfere in the elections, the president also insists that other countries did as well.
When asked if Russia was now “off the hook” as far as any consequences goes for their meddling after Trump tweeted that “Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia,” Preibus said that “What it means is that we’re not going to forego progress simply because we have a disagreement in regards to this meddling in the United States election. What it means is means we have to move forward with things like a cease-fire in Syria” and resolving other important issues.
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