President Trump’s claim that “everyone” at the at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, “is talking about” the hacking of Democratic officials during the 2016 election is a bit of an exaggeration, according to a report Friday.
Earlier in the day, Trump tweeted, “Everyone here is talking about why John Podesta refused to give the DNC server to the FBI and the CIA. Disgraceful!”, appearing to conflate the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman’s email with the breach at the Democratic National Committee.
White House officials were not only surprised by Trump’s tweet, but Trump was the only leader at the summit actually bringing up Podesta and the “DNC server,” sources at the event told the Daily Beast.
“Trump himself brought it up” randomly in talks with staff, one senior official informed the Daily Beast.
According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump did bring up the issue of election meddling to the man tied to the operation by a U.S. intelligence community report, Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two met for more than two hours on Friday.
Podesta himself replied to “whack job” Trump in a series of tweets, telling him to “get a grip.” He also wrote a Washington Post op-ed in which he questioned Trump’s tweeting about him when “he should be doing his job.”
