There hasn’t been a White House press briefing in more than a week, but today while leaving for Brussels, Donald Trump took a handful of questions from reporters. During the four-minute Q&A he seemed to suggest our strongest ally, Great Britain, is an issue for the United States but made it seem like there are no problems between Russia and America. He even said he will be presenting Vladimir Putin with a gift when he sees him next week. Here are some of his thoughts:
“I have NATO, I have the UK which is in somewhat turmoil and I have Putin. Frankly Putin may be the easiest of them all. Who would think.”
“We are being taken advantage of by the European Union.”
“Getting along with Russia, China, others is a good thing.”
As Trump says of Putin meeting: "Frankly, Putin may be the easiest of them all." a reminder:
-Putin annexed Crimea
-Putin invaded E. Ukraine
-Putin interfered in 2016 to aid Trump
-Putin supports Assad in Syria & targets civilians to do so
-Putin used nerve agent to murder in UK— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) July 10, 2018
As for immigration? A reporter asked how the Government is responding to the missed deadline to reunite parents and children who have been separated after crossing the border. This was the exchange:
Via pool, Trump on missed deadline to reunite separated parents and kids: pic.twitter.com/nirJa1buNp
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 10, 2018
The Washington Post reports that this answer from Trump seems to mark a shift:
“It’s remarkable in part because, to this point, Trump’s public approach to the policy of separations has been that they are ‘‘horrible’ and a function of laws passed by the Democrats. On Tuesday, that political rhetoric slipped. The separations still weren’t Trump’s fault, but now they were the migrants’.
The second thing Trump’s comment did was suggest that the apparently confused system for reuniting children with their parents was as confused as it appears. It does no good to say that the solution to reuniting children with their parents is for those parents never to have crossed the border in the first place, any more than to suggest that the appropriate response to having your house burgled is to have installed an alarm system months prior. There was no indication from Trump that the government was handling the reunions adeptly.”