President Trump said Wednesday that he’ll have “a very good conversation” with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit but declined to say whether he plans to warn him against interfering in U.S. elections.
Trump was asked as he departed the White House for the summit in Japan whether he will confront Putin about election interference.
{mosads}”I will have a very good conversation with him. What I say to him is none of your business,” Trump said.
Asked over the weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he would directly confront Putin on the issue of election interference, Trump said, “I may.”
The gathering of world leaders in Osaka will mark the first time Trump and Putin have seen each other face to face since special counsel Robert Mueller concluded his nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller’s report concluded that Russia engaged in a systematic effort to interfere in the 2016 election, but investigators did not establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Trump faced bipartisan backlash last year after a summit in Helsinki, where he said Putin strongly denied that he was involved in election interference, undercutting the U.S. intelligence community.
Trump will hold meetings with the heads of state of Australia, Japan, India, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and China at the summit.
“I’m meeting with Russia. I’m meeting with China. I’m meeting with many countries,” Trump said Wednesday outside the White House. “We’ve been ripped off by everybody over the years. They’re not ripping us off anymore.”