Trump didn't just congratulate Putin — he invited him to the White House

Donald Trump didn’t just congratulate Vladimir Putin on his election win during their infamous phone call last month — he invited him to the White House, a Kremlin aide said Monday.

The invitation was revealed by Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, who told reporters that Trump suggested a meeting in Washington during a March 20 phone call between the two leaders.

“When our presidents spoke on the phone, Trump proposed having the first meeting in Washington, in the White House,” Ushakov said, adding that Russia was keen for the summit to happen. “This is quite an interesting, positive idea.”

Trump, who told reporters after the call he expected to see Putin “in the not-too-distant future,” was heavily criticized for congratulating the Russian leader on his re-election during the call, against the explicit advice of his aides.

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders Monday confirmed that the White House was among a number of potential venues discussed for the meeting, but said there was “nothing further to add at this time.”

The phone call between the leaders came before the coordinated mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from more than 20 Western countries, in a collective protest over Moscow’s alleged role in a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in the English town of Salisbury. Moscow announced last week it was expelling 150 Western diplomats, including 60 Americans, in response.

Putin’s government is accused of a raft of hostile acts against Western governments, including interfering in the 2016 U.S. election. Should Trump host the Russian leader, it would undermine global diplomatic efforts against the Kremlin, and signal to Russia that its standing on the world stage had not been compromised by the fallout from Salisbury.

Hence Moscow’s apparent eagerness for Trump to make good on his invitation. “We want to believe that the discussions [on a proposed summit] will begin,” Ushakov said Monday. “We want to hope that… one day, at one time or another we can arrive at the start of a serious and constructive dialogue.”

However, he acknowledged that recent events had made prospect of such a get-together a long shot. “Against the backdrop of these events, it’s difficult to discuss the possibility of holding a summit,” he said.

Despite the U.S. joining other Western countries in expelling Russian diplomats over the nerve agent attack, Trump has personally refrained from criticizing Moscow, and has repeatedly spoken in the past of his desire for closer ties with Russia, even as relations between the two countries plummet.

Cover image: Donald Trump chats with Russia's President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in the Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017. (MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP/Getty Images)