Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said on Tuesday that President Trump gave too many concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Helsinki, Finland on Monday.
“I think he [Putin] got an assurance that America would not respond under Article 5, that Article 5 was toast because NATO was a problem, the EU was our foe, and I think he got a lot of things,” Cohen told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising,” referring to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) founding document.
The article states that a threat to one member nation is a threat to all nations.
“I think he got a free ride in Syria, and they’re going to take the oil fields in Syria, and that’s going to be something Russia needs because they’re economically desperate. They’re going to keep [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad in power, and that’s not good for anybody, and I think we gave away the farm in that two hours,” Cohen continued, referencing the Russian military presence in the ongoing Syrian civil war.
Cohen’s comments follow Trump and Putin’s headline-making press conference on Monday, in which Trump did not condemn Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump also met with Putin privately before the press conference.
The summit with Putin followed a NATO summit in Brussels, in which Trump pushed allies to increase their defense spending.
Trump’s combative stance toward the alliance stirred speculation ahead of his meeting with Putin, as the alliance works to defend Baltic states bordering Russia.
However, the president praised the bloc in a tweet on Monday and called last week’s summit a success.
“Received many calls from leaders of NATO countries thanking me for helping to bring them together and to get them focused on financial obligations, both present & future,” Trump tweeted prior to his meeting with Putin. “We had a truly great Summit that was inaccurately covered by much of the media. NATO is now strong & rich!”
— Julia Manchester
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