GREAT STUFF FROM HELSINKI – AT 1:16 P.M. ET:  Hey, this is getting to be fun.  The summit between Trump and Putin has gotten off to a sparkling start.  And immediately the issue of Russkie collusion in the 2016 election came up.  Get this, from Fox: 

President Trump and Vladimir Putin tackled allegations of election meddling in unprecedented terms following their one-on-one summit Monday, with Trump opening the door to an unusual offer of cooperation in the special counsel probe and the Russian president suggesting he indeed favored the billionaire businessman in 2016. 

But Putin, emphatically and repeatedly, denied meddling in the U.S. election, saying there's "no evidence." And Trump, while saying they spent a "great deal of time" discussing the allegations, blasted the ongoing probe as a "disaster for our country." 

The two leaders spoke at a freewheeling joint press conference following a pair of meetings -- one private -- in Helsinki, Finland. Trump and Putin both touted the summit as a success, vowing to improve ties on a range of issues. 

“I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics,” Trump declared. 

During their press conference, few topics were off limits. The session with international reporters ended with Putin being asked whether he had compromising material on Trump, which he dismissed as "nonsense." Even that moment was overshadowed by the extensive comments on election meddling. 

Trump once again asserted there was "no collusion." 

COMMENT:  We are just starting to get information about the summit, which, at first appearances, looks like a fairly routine first-summit, with no stupendous breakthroughs.  I would ignore the bickering already coming from Washington, and the attempts to parse every word.  Wait for the authorized "leaks." 

The line the president spoke, "I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics,” was clearly pre-written.  There was preparation, and that was the point Mr. Trump wanted to make.

The president will be trashed by the press no matter what he says and does.  President Reagan walked away from a summit with Gorbachev, refusing to agree to a new arms-control pact, and was called a "warmonger" by some.  President Roosevelt went to Yalta, and gave away too much to the old Soviet Union, and was properly criticized.

We wait for concrete information.

July 16, 2018