Just a month after President Trump telephoned Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on his re-election to a fourth term as Russian president and said, “we will get together in the not-too-distant future,” the White House has yet to say precisely when this Trump-Putin summit will take place.
“Nothing has been finalized on that front,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told Newsmax on Thursday afternoon. “I think the next big summit — I’ll borrow your word — that the president will likely engage in will be between President Trump and [North Korean strongman] Kim Jong Un. Beyond that, I have no updates.”
Asked if possible dates for a meeting with Putin have been discussed, the president’s top spokesman replied: “Not that I’m aware of. Certainly nothing is finalized at this point. But certainly the president would be very much open to sitting down with the leader of Russia.”
Hours before Newsmax questioned Sanders, speculation about a Trump-Putin summit was rekindled when the “Financial Times” reported that Alexei Kudrin, one of Putin’s oldest political advisers and a former finance minister, was being considered for a return assignment in Putin’s cabinet.
Kudrin, a vigorous advocate of warmer relations between the Kremlin and the White House, has repeatedly said that unless Russia ends its confrontation with Europe and the U.S., it will not be able to make the radical economic changes he feels his country desperately needs.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.