A tale of two summits: Trump at Helsinki, and Biden at Geneva.

[Judi Lynn]

Mr. Putin offering Mr. Trump a present at a news conference in Helsinki, Finland, in 2018.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

By Eric Nagourney and Michael D. Shear

June 16, 2021, 7:07 a.m. ET

President Biden, fresh from meeting Vladimir V. Putin, seemed at pains from the very start of a news conference Wednesday to make one thing clear: Geneva 2021 was no Helsinki 2018.

Helsinki, Finland, was where President Donald J. Trump had his own first face-to-face meeting with the Russian president, and the moment was highly anticipated, given the investigations then taking place into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its reported ties to Mr. Trump’s campaign.

The meeting offered the American president a ripe opportunity to denounce the Kremlin on a public stage. He did not.
Instead, standing by Mr. Putin’s side, Mr. Trump dismissed the conclusions by U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian meddling and said, in essence, that he believed the Russian president’s denials as much as he believed his own intelligence advisers.

“They said they think it’s Russia,” Mr. Trump said. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.” For good measure, he said, “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
Even some of Mr. Trump’s own supporters were aghast.

“It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected — immediately,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker.

More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/world/europe/biden-geneva-trump-helsinki.html

[BigmanPigman]

1. We still don't have the "notetaker's notes" from that meeting.

They must be preserved in the double secret vault. How can we get them NOW? We have waited 3 years!