President Trump Leaves For Finland To Meet Putin; Russia Election Meddling
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Focus now turns here to Helsinki.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump seems to think that Vladimir Putin is his friend, that Russia is our friend when that is simply not the case.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I would have a very good relationship with President Putin.</s>TOM PEREZ, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: He is Putin's poodle. And is not going to hold Putin accountable.</s>TRUMP: Anything you do, so he's going to be, oh, Russia. He loves Russia. I love the United States.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president feels like he can just go in and give Vladimir Putin a big hug and everything is going to be fine.</s>TRUMP: Well, I've been prepared, totally prepared. I've been prepared for this stuff my whole life.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His warm embrace of Putin has the eyes of the world on this summit.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. And thank you so much for spending some time with us here. President Trump is getting in another round of golf at his resort in Scotland before he heads to Finland, that's happening in just a few hours, and that of course where his historic meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: This is the third stop on his European tour the one he is appear to be most vocal about even saying frankly Putin might be the easiest of them all.</s>PAUL: And it has not been a quiet trip thus far. Protesters following the president everywhere it seems, from London to Scotland, and they are expected to show up in Helsinki.</s>BLACKWELL: President Trump has also been very free with his advice to NATO countries in the U.K. This morning, British Prime Minister Theresa May told the BBC -- BBC rather, that President Trump told her to sue the</s>E.U. PAUL: CNN's Abby Phillip is in Glasgow, Scotland where President Trump is wrapping up his weekend here, and CNN's Nic Robertson is in Helsinki, Finland where the president is headed of course next for that summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That happens tomorrow but we're going to start with Abby in Scotland. Abby, help us understand what is on the president's agenda today.</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, of course, this weekend has been spent with a combination of golf and preparations for this important and highly anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki tomorrow. The president will be leaving Scotland in just a few short hours for this meeting. But it has already been complicated by some developments back home on the domestic front, 12 indictments of Russian military intelligence officers on Friday have prompted calls for President Trump to forcefully confront Vladimir Putin about Russian election meddling or cancel the summit. The White House has already said they are not cancelling it. It's going to go ahead as planned but there are questions now about whether President Trump is going to do enough to make</s>PAUL: All right. Abby Phillip there in Glasgow with us. Thank you so much, Abby. Appreciate it. Now CNN's international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live in Helsinki.</s>BLACKWELL: Nic, President Trump will arrive in Helsinki and we see that there are more protests there. Tell us how the people of Helsinki are viewing this meeting between Trump and Putin.</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: You know, I think, generally speaking, the people here are happy to see President Putin and President Trump meet. They live on -- they live on Russia's doorstep. They live under the shadow of Russia. They manage to stay out of its grip at the end of the Second World War. So any sort of</s>PAUL: Interestingly, this morning, Nic, there is one other meeting we need to talk about that we just learned about, Macron. French's president Macron is going to be meeting with Putin in just a few hours here before the World Cup. They are going to meet one-on-one as we understand it. What do we know about that meeting?</s>ROBERTSON: Sure. Look, I mean, right now, Moscow is sort of the center of the world's attention. President Putin is hosting the World Cup, in many ways. He is man of the moment through today. So he will be hosting Emmanuel Macron whose team France is in the final. But this is a relationship between Macron and Putin that has been warming up this year. Macron came to St. Petersburg for a summit there that President Putin was holding earlier in the year, it's an annual event, and France's Emmanuel Macron went there. So that relationship has been warming up but what Macron will be able to talk to Putin about today before the World Cup final is that -- is about the NATO meeting that President Trump has just attended. And, of course, the real concern there was that NATO would present a united front in the face of Russian aggression. So what President Putin may learn, the questions he may ask, what Emmanuel Macron of France may tell him about that meeting will be information, will be valuable information of insights when he sits down with President Trump before he gets President Trump's take on that meeting. So the ball here metaphorically speaking on a World Cup final day is very much on this issue at the moment today at least in President Putin's court.</s>PAUL: All right. Very good pun there, very good way to say it. Nic Robertson, we appreciate it. Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Joining us now Siraj Hashmi, commentary writer and editor for the "Washington Examiner;" and Uri Friedman, global affairs staff writer for "The Atlantic."</s>PAUL: Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us. Uri, I want to get your take first on this meeting with -- that we're just learning about with President Macron and President Putin.</s>URI FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER, GLOBAL AFFAIRS, THE ATLANTIC: Yes. I think it's going to be a study in contrast. Because Emmanuel Macron has very different positions than Donald Trump on many key issues like Ukraine, for example. Donald Trump has not rolled out recognizing Crimea which was illegally annexed in 2014 by Russia as Russian territory. Whereas Emmanuel Macron and much of Europe has a much, you know, more -- really a stronger stand on Ukraine saying, it should be Russian territory and that Russia should leave. And on Syria Macron has been much more vocal in calling out Assad's use of chemical weapons against civilians, for example. So I think in -- on Iran as well, for example, the Iran nuclear deal, France wants to stay in, Russia wants to stay in, Donald Trump has withdrawn. So I think you'll see a study in contrast on certain issues. There's a larger thing too which is that Europe has really become more independent in its foreign policy as a result of its tensions with the United States. And Emmanuel Macron has been at the lead of having a stronger European foreign policy and I think you'll see that on display in his meeting in Moscow with Vladimir Putin today.</s>BLACKWELL: Siraj, the president has talked a lot about and some would say bragged about being tougher on Russia than his recent predecessors. And, yes, he did supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, the sanctions as well. And we know that he urged NATO members to spend more on their defense. How does he now turn that just a couple of days later and reframe that standing next to Vladimir Putin?</s>SIRAJ HASHMI, COMMENTARY WRITER AND EDITOR, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, given the fact that Robert Mueller announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for meddling in the 2016 election, President Trump has to bring that up in the meeting and he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't with respect to Trump's attempted friendliness with Vladimir Putin. You know, it would just -- you know, a lot of the things that he does with respect to how he approaches foreign policy, it would justify his behavior if he is playing by the player -- you know, keep your friends close but your enemies even closer. And I think that this culture of appeasement that he is being criticized for with respect to his relationship with Vladimir Putin and his toughness on NATO allies and Theresa May, the prime minister of England, the United Kingdom, you know, there is a lot of tough questions and Trump is always been the wildcard going into meetings. The real key thing here is that both Putin and Trump do not care about their respective politics happening in their home countries because they are just going to do whatever they want to do.</s>PAUL: So, listen, there is something else that has happened this morning that has come out. Let's listen to Prime Minister Theresa May. She was talking to the BBC earlier today and revealed something that we had not known before about a conversation she had with President Trump.</s>THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: He told me I should sue the</s>E.U. ANDREW MARR, HOST, "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW": Sue the E.U.?</s>MAY: Sue the E.U. Not go into negotiations, sue them. Actually, no, no. We're going into -- we're going into --</s>MARR: Do you think about that for a second?</s>MAY: We're going into negotiations with them. But interestingly what the president also said at that press conference was don't walk away.</s>MARR: Yes, then you'll be stuck.</s>MAY: Don't walk away from negotiations because then you're stuck. So I want us to be able to sit down to negotiate the best deal for Britain.</s>PAUL: So, Uri, what is your reaction to the fact that the president told Theresa May to sue the EU.? I know our first reaction was sue for what? On what basis?</s>BLACKWELL: Sue for what and what court are we suing?</s>FRIEDMAN: Yes. That is very, very unclear. Now Donald Trump knows about lawsuits. He has been involved in many. So he is familiar with that approach. I think also more broadly this is Donald Trump's approach, you know, it is to go in, be disruptive, go in the harshest way possible. Theresa May has taken a much different approach which is to kind of do what is called a soft Brexit which is trying to be somewhat a part of the European Union while still being an independent country. And I think this is a good example of the way Donald Trump would approach this as opposed to, you know, Theresa May and the conflict between them. And I think more broadly, this shows that Donald Trump wouldn't be afraid to kind of challenge the integrity of the European Union. He doesn't necessarily agree with, you know, the idea of trying to keep cohesion within the European Union.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>FRIEDMAN: He actually wants to engage with all these countries on a more bilaterally basis and that's why he's urging Theresa May to do it and say, take or do clean break with the European Union. Let's trade together and let's do that with other European countries as well.</s>BLACKWELL: Siraj, listen to how the president this week framed his expectations for this meeting.</s>TRUMP: We will see what happens. Just a loose meeting. It's not going to be big schedule. I don't think it should take a very long period of time. And we will see where it leads.</s>BLACKWELL: I mean, they have met twice before since the inauguration and this isn't like a Singapore get to know you meeting as that was framed. Is the president lowering expectations or is it realistic that he is really going into the summit with no expectation of deliverables?</s>HASHMI: The thing about President Trump is he feels he can go into a lot of meetings with world leaders or diplomats cold without having being briefed on a lot of the matters that are going forward. You know, with respect to Syria, the United States struck twice against them in two planned military strikes with respect to using chemical weapons. You know, President Trump can use sort of that mentality of saying, look, if Russia doesn't get their act together, you know, we'll implement more sanctions or we will take matters even further. Of course, recognizing Crimea is not -- should not be part of that plan and certainly giving way to anything not even the mentioning the Mueller indictments that happened on Friday is sort of conceding that position right there. So, you know, Trump doesn't want to be too hawkish on Russia but, you know, there comes a time and a place where he has to put his foot down and say, enough.</s>BLACKWELL: Well, we know there will be this media availability, as it's being called. We don't know if the president will take questions but I'm sure that those questions will come up, especially about Crimea and Syria, Iran as well. Siraj Hashmi and Uri Friedman, thank you both.</s>PAUL: Thank you, gentlemen.</s>FRIEDMAN: Thank you.</s>PAUL: So a special edition of "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER" is live for you today from Finland. It's at 8:00 a.m. Eastern and at noon. You can tune in to hear from senators Mark Warner and Rand Paul.</s>BLACKWELL: Police and protesters clash in Chicago after officers shot and killed a man on the city's south side. We have got a firsthand look. You're seeing some of it now of the violence from last night's demonstrations.</s>PAUL: Also a half dozen animals in a New Orleans zoo killed after a jaguar got out of its habitat. How long it took zookeepers to track down that big cat?</s>BLACKWELL: And the World Cup comes down to today. Championship match featuring two European teams that could not be more different. We're live from Moscow for France-Croatia.