National security adviser H.R. McMaster advised President Trump not to have a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, last month, according to a report Wednesday.
The Associated Press says McMaster expressed his disapproval of the meeting to foreign officials during the leadup to the summit.
McMaster also told these officials that he disagreed with Trump’s decision to host Russian diplomats in an Oval Office meeting in May. He worries that Trump is not speaking out forcefully enough about Russian aggression in Europe, especially in light of Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. election, the Associated Press said.
McMaster, who has been warning Trump that Putin should not be trusted, did not attend the G-20 meeting. On the U.S. side, only Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and a translator attended the meeting.
The Russians recommended a notetaker attend the meeting, but Trump refused, the AP said, because the U.S. president feared leaks.
In the meeting, Trump and Putin discussed Russia’s election interference and the ongoing Syrian war. But the Americans and Russians disagreed over how forcefully Trump pushed the election issue and how he responded to Putin’s denial. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place for half an hour, but ended up taking up two hours and 15 minutes.
Before the meeting, Trump and Putin had a separate private conversation in the main room of the G-20 summit, where dinner was held.
The White House did not previously disclose the second interaction and has not detailed what Trump and Putin discussed since the story broke.
There is no official account of the conversation, because only Trump, Putin, and a Russian translator participated in it.
Trump downplayed the significance of the conversation in an interview with The New York Times published Wednesday night.
