News that President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G-20 summit late last year with no translator or notetaker present, is "unusual and really, really dangerous," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Wednesday.
"I do know from my own experience how much work it takes to have a meeting, all the preparations by people in the government to get it together, brief the president, do all kinds of things," Albright told MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"Then, you need to know what actually happens in the meeting, so if there are decisions made, they can be carried out."
Translators are the key to democracy, and it is "very difficult to know what happened" if one is not present, said Albright.
"It is more than unusual," she said. "I think it is something very damaging to the way we do and should make policy."
On Tuesday, Financial Times reported Trump and Putin met for 15 minutes after an event during the Buenos Aries summit, with nobody there to record what was said.
Albright also said Wednesday that Russia is playing a "weak hand very well," and Putin is using a nationalist card in his efforts to "make Russia great again."
"We can't forget Putin is a KGB agent and knows how to do that," she said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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