2016 ELECTION/MEDIA/NATO/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Tuesday [7-17-18] claimed he had a great meeting with Vladimir Putin and lashed out at the media coverage that captured the widespread dismay at his news conference with the Russian president…Trump met with Putin on Monday [7-16-18] for a one-on-one meeting, followed by a remarkable news conference in which Trump publicly sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The comments sparked an outcry, including from many fellow Republicans who escalated their criticism of Trump’s coziness toward Putin. The summit came several days after Trump participated in the NATO summit and alienated U.S. allies by publicly slamming them and demanding that they dramatically increase their defense spending…NATO spending, however, has been going up since 2014, prior to Trump‘s first meeting with NATO in 2017. It is unclear where Trump got the $33 billion figure. The president has complained many times that the U.S. carries too much burden at NATO and has suggested that nations commit to spending 4 percent of their GDP on defense.”
–Rebecca Morin, “Trump lashes out at media coverage of his Putin meeting,” Politico, July 17, 2018 10:53 am