Well now, this just got peculiar: During the G-20 summit, Donald Trump had a second, informal meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin that nobody knew about. We don't know what they talked about, and we're not likely to ever know.
In that conversation, Trump spoke with the Russian leader for roughly an hour, joined only by Putin's translator. The meeting had previously gone without mention by the White House. [...]
That Trump was not joined in the conversation by his own translator is a breach of national security protocol, Bremmer noted, though one that the president likely would not know about.
Why had this second meeting gone unreported until now? We don't know. What did they discuss? We don't know. Why did Trump attend it with no other staff members present, not even a translator, relying only on Putin's provided translator? We don't know. We also don't know if he was warned that meeting with Putin privately, without an American translator, would be a national security danger.
It's either an excruciatingly odd move by Trump to further ingratiate himself with Putin during the summit or, God help us, Trump really did have something he wanted to discuss with no other Americans present.
Tuesday, Jul 18, 2017 · 10:48:52 PM +00:00
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Hunter
The second meet-up was apparently during a dinner:
Halfway through the meal, Trump left his own seat to occupy a chair next to Putin. Trump was alone, and Putin was attended only by his official interpreter. [...]
Leaders who reported the meeting to him, Bremmer said, were “bemused, non-plussed , befuddled” by the animated conversation, held in full view — but not listening distance — of others present.
And Trump didn’t have a translator with him because he had been seated with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, and had brought “only a Japanese-English interpreter.” (You have to wonder what Abe thought when his dinner partner suddenly wandered off.)