President Donald Trump is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida following the announcement that 13 Russian nationals were indicted on Friday for charges of interfering with the 2016 presidential election, in another visit that is a "retreat in every sense" as he comes under questions about what he plans to do about the news, Washington Post national political reporter Robert Costa said late Friday.
"When you think about the president's time at his winter retreat, Mar-a-Lago, he's known to walk into weddings to say hello to friends like [Newsmax Media CEO] Christopher Ruddy who's having dinner at the club," Costa told MSNBC's Brian Williams on the "11th Hour" Friday night. "He wants to hear feedback but it's a feedback loop of positive words from friends, allies, people looking for favors or to ingratiate themselves with this administration. This is not the environment he's going to get candid feedback, from fellow Republicans or staffers. This is a retreat in every sense."
To open the segment, Williams played a clip of Trump denying in September that Russia had helped him win his election, and said that the idea that it did was "one of the great hoaxes."
He also accused Democrats of perpetuating the "hoax" as an excuse for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's loss.
On Friday, the president declared on Twitter that the indictments, brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, show his campaign did "nothing wrong" and prove there was "no collusion" with Russia.
Further, he pointed out that according to the indictments, Russia started its anti-US campaign in 2014, long before he announced his presidential race, and that the election itself had not been impacted.
Philip Rucker, the White House bureau chief for The Washington Post was also on the late night program, and told Williams that he does not know if Trump's stance will change over the weekend. As of early Saturday morning, the president had made no further comment about the matter on Twitter.
"He's the president and commander in chief but in his response today President Trump said nothing about safeguarding the country in the future or about punishing Russia for the acts and for the charges that were spelled out by Mueller's indictment," said Rucker. "I expect he'll come under some pressure from leaders in Congress, certainly on the Democratic side, probably some on the Republican side who will want to see perhaps further sanctions or simply full enforcement of the existing sanctions that were signed into law late last summer."
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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