DONALD TRUMP has sent a message to Vladimir Putin: “don’t meddle in the election.”
The US’s tongue-in-cheek request came at this week’s G20 summit where he encountered Putin for the first time since former special counsel Robert Mueller issued a report on Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election in order to benefit Trump.
As the cameras clicked and reporters began to pose questions, President Trump made light of any suggestion of collusion, wagging a finger at the Russian leader before repeating “don’t meddle in the election.”
There was a brief delay while an interpreter translated Trump’s request but Putin nevertheless saw the funny side, letting out a laugh as the back and forth continued.
The meeting saw Trump outlined his plans to discuss trade and nuclear disarmament with Putin.
"It's a great honour to be with President Putin," he told reporters.
"We have a very, very good relationship and we look forward to spending some very good time together," he added.
"A lot of very positive things are going to come out of the relationship."
Trump had earlier been pictured at the summit gently patting Putin on the back before G20 delegates posed for a group picture.
According to a White House readout, the two leaders discussed Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Ukraine during their face-to-face meeting.
Speaking in an interview with the Financial Times, Putin praised Trump for trying to stop the flow of migrants from Mexico into the US.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Russian stated his belief that liberalism “presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrant can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected”.
The meeting and comments come just a few months after the Mueller report detailed how Putin’s government conducted a campaign of hacking Democrat emails while also pushing fake news stories about their candidate Hilary Clinton.
Despite these revelations and indications some aides welcomed these efforts, the report found no evidence linking the Trump campaign to the plot.
See More: Donald Trump, Election, G20, Vladimir Putin
