The much-awaited meeting between the leaders of the two strongest nations on earth finally took place. The US president flew in from London to Helsinki and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, came from Moscow. The summit meeting at Helsinki, the capital of Finland, was chosen as a venue for the meeting. The two leaders met for more than two hours and after that, they addressed a joint press conference. The New York Times reported that at the press conference Trump seemed to side with the Russians against his own intelligence agencies and referred to the investigations of Russian connection as a "witch hunt".
Press conference in Helsinki
To Americans back home, particularly the opponents of Trump, the press conference gave them more fodder to criticize the US president. They were harsh on him as he did not take up the case of Russian interference in the US presidential election forcefully. Actually, it seemed the president sided with Putin against his own intelligence agencies who concluded that Russia interfered in the US election.
To be fair to Trump, he could not support a line of thought that he won the election with Russian support. The fact is that though Hillary won the popular vote the electoral college ensured that Trump won by a handsome margin. All this is fair and square for him, but the opponents of Trump will have nothing to do with this line of thought.
They hope they can corner the president and somehow prove that Trump won because of Russian interference. Matters have not been helped by a statement put out by a Russian news agency that the Russians wanted Trump to win.
Critics of the president
Back home, critics of Donald Trump, like Democrat Chuck Schumer were angry with him.
Schumer wants a hearing to find out what was said privately to Putin, according to CNN. Republican Mike Turner, lambasted the president for not standing up to Putin, saying his actions were "deeply damaging," and "the president needs to understand he has damaged national foreign policy," CNN noted. From all the negative reaction, one can see that in the back of their minds is a deep hurt that Trump won, despite many in the old guard of the Republican party being against him.
It seems his critics are really overjoyed to have more ammunition to use against him.
Trump support
Trump has finished one-and-a-half years of his term and will definitely seek re-election. The aim of such criticism is to see that he loses in the next presidential election. In fact, his enemies would rather he is impeached before then. It is easier said than done, as Trump has a lot of support as well. Anita Kumar, writing on mcclatchydc.com commented that Trump's supporters are happy that he met Putin and did what he did.
Trump is back home but there is no doubt that he is charting his own fresh course. He is an unconventional man and as things stand, an attempt to derail him as president once more may well end in failure again.