Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Americans in an interview Thursday to dismiss any claims by the Russian government that President Donald Trump had come to any agreements with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during their meeting this week.
“I’m not sure I’d take the Russian ambassador’s word for a whole lot. From time to time they are wont to tell stories,” Pompeo told Fox News’s Shannon Bream after being asked with Russian claims that the two countries would soon implement mutual agreements surfaced.
Trump and Putin met on Monday in Helsinki, Finland, for their first one-on-one summit, which occurred in private and lasted about two hours. At the press conference following the meeting, the two heads of state agreed that the talk had been productive, without offering any specifics on what was discussed. The two did not sign any joint statements or make any public agreements on specific topics.
Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov, nonetheless, inspired some intrigue on Wednesday by claiming that the two had indeed privately agreed to some cooperation.
“It was an important meeting. It was meaty, productive and constructive. I think important oral agreements were reached,” Antonov reportedly told Russian media.
Bream asked Pompeo whether the statement was true and, if so, to what sort of agreements Antonov was referring. After dismissing the Russian ambassador as someone “wont to tell stories,” Pompeo clarified:
Here’s what I know. I’d have a chance to talk with President Trump about his discussions with President Putin. There was progress made on a handful of fronts: agreements to try and work more closely on counterterrorism, an effort to begin conversations around arms control to prevent the spread of nuclear proliferation. There were lots of things discussed.
Pompeo concluded that the true goal of the summit was “to create a way where the two leaders of these important countries can have positive, constructive conversations,” which he considered a goal the summit achieved.
“There’ll be lots of places our two countries’ interests and values diverge,” Pompeo warned. “President Trump’s deeply aware of that.”
Pompeo’s answer was consistent with the official line of the State Department as articulated by spokeswoman Heather Nauert during her regular press briefing on Wednesday. Asked about Antonov’s remarks, Nauert told reporters she was not aware of any agreements made between Trump and Putin. Instead, Nauert said the two left the summit with “sort of three takeaways” of proposals that were made but have not yet been fully assessed.
The three takeaways listed were a meeting between U.S. and Russian business leaders, the formation of a joint council of U.S.-Russian political scientists, and a meeting between the two countries’ national security councils.
“These are certainly all modest proposals,” Nauert emphasized.
Shortly before the two leaders entered their private meeting, Trump told reporters that they would discuss “everything from trade to military to missiles to nuclear to China.”
Following the summit, however, reporters failed to ask the two leaders at their joint press conference about any foreign policy issues, with a notable absence of questions on China. Instead, much of the focus was on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Following reports that Putin had requested that Russian intelligence agents be allowed to interview U.S. citizens, Pompeo said in his interview Thursday that there was absolutely no chance Trump would allow that to happen. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had already told reporters that Trump declined the request.
Pompeo told Bream that “the President’s been very resolute. He understands precisely who it is we’re dealing with in Russia. He gets it.”
While Trump has attempted to “take opportunities, places where we find we can work together, and put America in a position to do the things he wants to do on behalf of the American people,” Pompeo emphasized that exposing American citizens to Russian interrogation was not one of those opportunities.
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would invite Putin to participate in a second summit in the fall, this time at the White House.
“President Trump asked John Bolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway,” Huckabee Sanders confirmed on Twitter.
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