U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday of being a “slow learner” who again tried to meddle in U.S. elections in November, adding that he had no trust in the Russian leader.
The remarks by Mattis at a security forum in California came a day after President Donald Trump held informal talks with Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 industrialized nations meeting in Argentina. Trump had scrapped a more formal meeting with Putin, citing Russia’s treatment of Ukraine.
Asked if U.S.-Russian ties had become more strained since he took over the Pentagon last year after Trump became president, Mattis said, “There’s no doubt the relationship has worsened.”
“(Putin) tried again to muck around in our elections this last month. And we are seeing a continued effort along those lines,” Mattis said, adding that the United States would take whatever steps were necessary to defend American democracy.
“It is regrettable that we can’t succeed in holding a full-scale meeting, which is long due,” Putin said, adding that issues of strategic stability would be of paramount importance. [nL2N1Y60M7]
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday said the Ukraine events were the only reason Trump canceled his planned formal meeting with Putin in Argentina, not developments in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.
The decision to scrap the meeting with Putin came shortly after Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on Thursday to a charge of lying to Congress about a skyscraper project Trump was pursuing in Moscow during the 2016 U.S. presidential race. [nL2N1Y40PO]
“Ludicrous; Washington parlor game,” Pompeo said in a CNN interview at the G20 meeting when asked whether Trump was motivated to cancel the meeting by Cohen’s guilty plea.
Source: Reuters
