'You have been watching one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president I have ever seen': Anderson Cooper eviscerates Trump after Vladmir Putin press conference
- Anderson Cooper slammed President Trump in the wake of his press conference with Vladmir Putin on Monday in Helsinki
- 'You have been watching one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president at a summit in front of a Russian leader,' said Cooper
- President Trump was asked during the press conference if he would denounce Putin and if he believed his own intelligence agencies over the Russian leader
Anderson Cooper made it very clear how he felt about president
Donald Trump's performance during his joint press conference with Russian leader Vladmir Putin.
'You have been watching perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president at a summit in front of a Russian leader certainly that I've ever seen,' began Cooper in his remarks once the press conference had ended on Monday.
Cooper said this in a calm and even voice, delivering it as fact and not an opinion.
'An extraordinary press conference,' added Cooper, who is on assignment in Helsinki for the week.
Cooper then explained how he arrived at his review of President Trump's performance in his first question to Christiane Amanpour, who is also in Finland.
'Christiane, given the opportunity, asked by an American reporter who he trusted on the issue of Russian meddling, the U.S. Intelligence or Vladimir Putin, he blinked and he went to Hillary Clinton's e-mail server,' noted Cooper.
'As to who he holds responsible, he holds both responsible. I think we are all to blame. We have a chance to make some great things.'
Cooper continued: 'Made no mention of the shooting down of a plane, Crimea and election interference. In fact he said all he can do is ask the question about election interference. And said that Vladimir Putin was very powerful in his denial of it and the president went on to say he doesn't see any reason why it would have been Russia who interfered.'
Amanpour quickly made it clear that she was very much in agreement with Cooper and equally bewildered by what she had just witnessed take place on he international stage.
'I think that was it. "I don't see any reason why it would have been Russia hacking into our election and went on to talk about the server and the 30,000 e-mails," et cetera,' replied Amanpour.
'He basically said in Russia, they would never have let this stuff happen. I mean it really was quite extraordinary actually. I thought we were going to get out of that press conference with a minimum of damage and that was really, really extraordinary as you just said.'
She went on to note: 'And he then said that Putin came up with a great offer as to how to figure this out, which of course Putin responded as he always does with the sort of obfuscation. Yes, we have a sort of treaty on various issues, but you have to send us a formal letter and we'll respond and we'll reciprocate but only in kind. We need to have people of interest.'
This all came to a head in the press conference when the AP cut right to the heart of the matter in the final question of the day.
'Just now, President Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. very U.S. Intelligence agency has concluded that Russia did,' said Jonathan Lemier.
'My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? My second question is would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again?'
President Trump responded by first trying to change the narrative.
'So let me just say that we have two thoughts. You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server, why haven't they taken the server. Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the democratic national committee,' said President Trump.
'I've been wondering that. I've been asking that for months and months and I've been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question.'
He then answered the question of who he believed more by saying: 'So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that president Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that's an incredible offer. Okay thank you.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...l-performances-president-Anderson-Cooper.html