Donald Trump has blasted the media, accusing outlets of quoting “fired losers” like his former national security adviser John Bolton on the upcoming summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The two presidents are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday and are are expected to focus their talks mainly on finding a settlement in the Ukraine conflict.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said: “Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin“
He accused outlets of “constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, ‘Putin has already won.’”
Calling the reports ‘fake news’ Trump went on: “What’s that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING“
RT reports: Bolton, who was fired from Trump’s first administration after 18 months on the job, has argued that inviting Putin to the US handed the Russian leader a win.
“It is a big win for Putin to come to the United States,” as he is currently a “pariah leader,” he claimed in an interview with Firstpost published on Tuesday.
Diplomatic relations between Russia and the US were effectively frozen in 2022 under the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, as part of its strategy to internationally “isolate” Moscow. Trump has moved to thaw relations and to end the Ukraine conflict.
Moscow will “proceed from the political goodwill” extended by the US and Russian leaders to “resolve issues through dialogue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented on the upcoming summit on Thursday.
Such political goodwill is in short supply, he added. “We will probably never get a sensible response, for example, from the Europeans.”