As January came to an end, Donald Trump held a brief Oval Office Q&A with reporters, one of whom asked whether he’d spoken to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. “I don’t want to say that,” the president replied.
Asked why he wouldn’t answer the question, the Republican added, “Well, I just don’t want to say that.”
His reticence was familiar. Two weeks earlier, Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked the president whether he had spoken to the Russian leader. Trump replied, “I don’t want to say.” Similarly, Time magazine asked him in a post-election interview, “Have you spoken to Vladimir Putin since your election?” All he had to do was say yes or no. The Republican did neither.
“I can’t tell you,” Trump replied. “I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate.”
In fact, Trump has spent nearly a full decade giving needlessly evasive answers about his private interactions with Russia’s authoritarian leader, even as he freely spoke about his talks with other international officials.
It was against this backdrop that The New York Post reported:
President Trump has spoken to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the phone to try to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, he told The Post in an exclusive interview aboard Air Force One Friday. “I’d better not say,” said Trump when asked how many times the two leaders have spoken.
The Republican was, however, willing to tell the tabloid newspaper that Putin “wants to see people stop dying” in Ukraine.
Two days after making the comments to the Post, Trump held another Q&A with reporters on Air Force One. Asked to elaborate on his interactions with Putin, the president responded, “I don’t want to do that. … I can’t tell you.”
So to recap, Trump is (a) finally willing to acknowledge that he’s spoken to Putin; (b) eager to let everyone know that the Russian leader is concerned about the fatalities in the war he started and could stop at any time; and (c) otherwise reluctant to talk about his private chats.
When did the president talk to Putin? He wouldn’t say. How many times did he talk to Putin? He wouldn’t say. What kind of ground did they cover? He wouldn’t say. Did the White House make any commitments to the Kremlin? He wouldn’t say.
In case this isn’t obvious, there are no external constraints preventing Trump from acknowledging basic details of these discussions. In fact, the president routinely talks about — indeed, brags about — his private interactions with foreign leaders, and bipartisan administrations have for many years offered public readouts after presidential conversations with foreign officials.
But when it comes to his chats with Putin, the Republican has adopted an entirely different line. “I’d better not say,” the president told the Post, without explaining why not.
For those concerned about Trump’s relationship with his benefactor in Moscow, this isn’t going to help.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
