May 4, 2019

Trump Brags About Call With Putin, Sees Potential for “Great Relationship With Russia”

He didn’t bother telling Putin not to meddle in the next election.

President Donald Trump speaks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during their 2018 summit in Helsinki.Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump has received a lot criticism for his overly friendly relationship with Vladamir Putin. But that didn’t stop Trump from taking to Twitter Saturday to brag about his latest phone call with the Russian strongman.

On Friday, Trump tweeted that he had a “very good conversation” with Putin about a number of issues, including the “Russian Hoax”—a reference to special counsel Robert Mueller’s recently concluded investigation into Russian contacts with Trump’s 2016 campaign and Trump’s subsequent efforts to interfere with the probe.

Later, when Trump was asked by a reporter at the White House whether he had asked Putin during the call not to interfere in the upcoming presidential election, Trump said, “We didn’t discuss that.” It was a remarkable admission, given that Russia’s 2016 hacking and disinformation campaign—which was intended to help Trump win the presidency—was at the center of Mueller’s investigation. Trump sparked a furor last year when, at a joint press conference with Putin, he publicly called into question his own intelligence officials’ conclusions about Russian meddling.

On Saturday, Trump bragged again about this week’s call, saying that it showed “tremendous potential for a good/great relationship with Russia.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate