HELSINKI: President Donald Trump arrived in Finland on Sunday for a closely watched one-on-one summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, hours after telling an interviewer that he was going into the meeting on Monday with “low expectations.”
On the way to meet with a leader who has cracked down on the press in his country, Trump tweeted that the US news media is the “enemy of the people” and complained that “No matter how well I do at the Summit” he’ll face “criticism that it wasn’t good enough.”
Trump also said in the interview that he had given no thought to asking Putin to extradite the dozen Russian military intelligence officers indicted this past week in on charges related to the hacking of Democratic targets in the 2016 US presidential election.
But after being given the idea by his interviewer, Trump said “certainly I’ll be asking about it” although extradition is high unlikely. The US doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Moscow and can’t force the Russians to hand over citizens. Russia’s constitution also prohibits turning over citizens to foreign governments.
Trump flew to Finland, the final stop on a weeklong trip that began last Tuesday, from Scotland. He and his wife, Melania, spent the weekend at a golf resort Trump owns in Turnberry. He was returning to the White House after Monday’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki, the Finnish capital.
Near Trump’s hotel, police roped off a group of about 60 mostly male pro-Trump demonstrators waving American flags. Big banners said “Welcome Trump” and “God Bless D & M Trump” and a helicopter hovered overhead.
Chants of “We Love Trump, We Love Trump” broke out as the president’s motorcade passed and Trump waved.
Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said it would be “pretty silly” for Trump to ask Putin to hand over the indicted Russians.
“For the president to demand something that isn’t going to happen puts the president in a weak position, and I think the president has made it very clear he intends to approach this discussion from a position of strength,” Bolton said in a separate interview.
Trump told CBS News that he’s going into the Helsinki summit with “low expectations. I’m not going with high expectations.” He declined to discuss his goals, but said such sessions are beneficial and cited his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Nothing bad is going to come out of it (Helsinki), and maybe some good will come out,” Trump said.
He described the European Union, a bloc of nation’s that includes many of America’s closest allies, as a “foe,” particularly on trade.
“I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade,” Trump said, adding that “you wouldn’t think of the European Union but they’re a foe.”
He said Russia is a foe “in certain respects” and that China is a foe “economically ... but that doesn’t mean they are bad. It doesn’t mean anything. It means that they are competitive.” Trump has been reluctant to criticize Putin over the years and has described him as a competitor in recent days.
Trump sat for the interview Saturday in Scotland and CBS News released excerpts on Sunday, hours before Trump flew to Helsinki. From aboard Air Force One, Trump called the US news media “the enemy of the people” and complained that he’ll face criticism regardless of the summit outcome.
“If I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough — that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!” he tweeted.
Trump also said: “Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people.”
Putin is regarded as having created a culture of violence and impunity that has resulted in the killing of some Russian journalists. Trump regularly criticizes American news media outlets and has called out some journalists by name.
Trump and Putin have held talks twice before. Their first meeting came last July while both attended an international summit and lasted more than two hours, well over the scheduled 30 minutes. The leaders also met last fall during a separate summit in Vietnam.
But Jon Huntsman, the US ambassador to Russia, said Monday’s meeting “is really the first time for both presidents to actually sit across the table and have a conversation and I hope it’s a detailed conversation about where we might be able to find some overlapping and shared interests.”
Congressional Democrats and at least one Republican have called on Trump to pull out of Monday’s meeting unless he is willing to make Russian election-meddling the top issue. Huntsman said the summit must go on because Russian engagement is needed to solve some international issues.
“The collective blood pressure between the United States and Russia is off-the-charts high so it’s a good thing these presidents are getting together,” he said.
Trump has said he will raise the issue of Russian election meddling, along with Syria, Ukraine, nuclear proliferation and other topics. Bolton described the meeting as “unstructured” and said: “We’re not looking for concrete deliverables here.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, rejected Bolton’s assertion that the indictments put Trump in a stronger position going in to the meeting.
“He has already said that he has asked Putin about meddling, Putin told him he didn’t do it, and he believed him,” Murphy said. “And so it just belies common sense that the president of the United States, this president, is going to sit down across from Putin and press him hard on the issue of Russian meddling.”
Putin has denied meddling in the election.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, said it’s inevitable that Russia will interfere in US elections and that it’s pointless for Trump to confront Putin about it.
Paul said both countries spy on each other but adds that Russian interference in the 2016 election isn’t “morally equivalent” to US interference in Russian elections, but “I think in their mind it is.”
Huntsman was interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Paul appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and Bolton and Murphy spoke on ABC’s “This Week.”
Trump arrives in Finland for closely watched Putin summit
Trump arrives in Finland for closely watched Putin summit
- Trump describes the European Union, a bloc of nation’s that includes many of America’s closest allies, as a “foe,” particularly on trade.
- He said Russia is a foe “in certain respects” and that China is a foe “economically ... but that doesn’t mean they are bad.
FBI says arson suspect targeted Mississippi synagogue because it’s a Jewish house of worship
JACKSON, Mississippi: A suspect in an arson fire at a synagogue that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan decades ago admitted to targeting the historic institution because it’s a Jewish house of worship and confessed what he had done to his father, who turned him in to authorities after observing burn marks on his son’s ankles, hands and face, the FBI said Monday.
Stephen Pittman was charged with maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive. The 19-year-old suspect confessed to lighting a fire inside the building, which he referred to as “the synagogue of Satan,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in US District Court in Mississippi on Monday.
At a first appearance hearing Monday in federal court, a public defender was appointed for Pittman, who attended via video conference call from a hospital bed. Both of his hands were visibly bandaged. He told the judge that he was a high school graduate and had three semesters of college.
Prosecutors said he could face five to 20 years in prison if convicted. When the judge read him his rights, Pittman said, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
A crime captured on video
The fire ripped through the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday. No congregants or firefighters were injured. Security camera video released Monday by the synagogue showed a masked and hooded man using a gas can to pour liquid on the floor and a couch in the building’s lobby.
The weekend fire badly damaged the 165-year-old synagogue’s library and administrative offices. Five Torahs — the sacred scrolls with the text of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — located inside the sanctuary were being assessed for smoke damage. Two Torahs inside the library, where the most severe damage was done, were destroyed. One Torah that survived the Holocaust was behind glass and was not damaged in the fire, according to the congregation.
The suspect’s father contacted the FBI and said his son had confessed to setting the building on fire. Pittman had texted his father a photo of the rear of the synagogue before the fire, with the message, “There’s a furnace in the back.” His father had pleaded with his son to return home, but “Pittman replied back by saying he was due for a homerun and ‘I did my research,’” the affidavit said.
During an interview with investigators, Pittman said he had stopped at a gas station on his way to the synagogue to purchase the gas used in the fire. He also took the license plate off his vehicle at the gas station. He used an ax to break out a window of the synagogue, poured gas inside and used a torch lighter to start the fire, the FBI affidavit said.
The FBI later recovered a burned cellphone believed to be Pittman’s and took possession of a hand torch that a congregant had found.
A congregation determined to rebuild
Yellow police tape on Monday blocked off the entrances to the synagogue building, which was surrounded by broken glass and soot. Bouquets of flowers were laid on the ground at the building’s entrance — including one with a note that said, “I’m so very sorry.”
The congregation’s president, Zach Shemper, has vowed to rebuild the synagogue and said several churches had offered their spaces for worship during the rebuilding process. Shemper attended Pittman’s court appearance Monday but didn’t comment afterward.
With just several hundred people in the community, it has never been particularly easy being Jewish in Mississippi’s capital city, but members of Beth Israel have taken special pride in keeping their traditions alive in the heart of the Deep South.
Nearly every aspect of Jewish life in Jackson could be found under Beth Israel’s roof. The midcentury modern building not only housed the congregation but also the Jewish Federation, a nonprofit provider of social services and philanthropy that is the hub of Jewish society in most US cities. The building also is home to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life, which provides resources to Jewish communities in 13 southern states. A Holocaust memorial was outdoors behind the synagogue building.
Because Jewish children throughout the South have attended summer camp for decades in Utica, Mississippi, about 30 miles southwest of Jackson, many retain a fond connection to the state and its Jewish community.
“Jackson is the capital city, and that synagogue is the capital synagogue in Mississippi,” said Rabbi Gary Zola, a historian of American Jewry who taught at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. “I would call it the flagship, though when we talk about places like New York and Los Angeles, it probably seems like Hicksville.”
A rabbi who stood up to the KKK
Beth Israel as a congregation was founded in 1860 and acquired its first property, where it built Mississippi’s first synagogue, after the Civil War. In 1967, the synagogue moved to its current location.
It was bombed by local KKK members not long after relocating, and then two months after that, the home of the synagogue’s leader, Rabbi Perry Nussbaum, was bombed because of his outspoken opposition to segregation and racism.
At a time when opposition to racial segregation could be dangerous in the Deep South, many Beth Israel congregants hoped the rabbi would just stay quiet, but Nussbaum was unshakable in believing he was doing the right thing by supporting civil rights, Zola said.
“He had this strong, strong sense of justice,” Zola said.
