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Trump invited Putin to Washington — and shocked his own director of national intelligence

“OK. That’s gonna be special.”

President Donald Trump has apparently invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington in the fall, to the surprise of many — including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

“Say that again,” Coats said Thursday when he was told about the invitation on stage during a security forum in Colorado. The audience laughed.

“Ok. That’s gonna be special,” he said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed in a tweet that Trump had instructed national security adviser John Bolton to invite Putin to D.C., and that “discussions were already underway.”

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Trump’s recent interactions with Putin have shocked politicians, the media, and experts. On Monday, Trump had a private meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, that was only witnessed by two interpreters.

In a joint press conference following the meeting, Trump appeared to side with Putin over American intelligence agencies, which say that Putin orchestrated an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. election in Trump’s favor. Trump later backtracked those comments and said he misspoke.

He also said that allowing Russian investigators to question suspects as part of the Mueller probe sounded like a “great idea,” but the White House walked that back Thursday. “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it,” Sanders said in a statement. The Senate voted 98-0 in a symbolic resolution to tell the president not to honor Putin’s request.

Putin himself has heralded the meeting with Trump as hugely successful and said that the media and other forces were attempting to create discord between the U.S. and Russia.

Cover image: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russia's President Vladimir Putin next to U.S. First Lady Melania Trump ahead a meeting in Helsinki, on July 16, 2018. (Photo by Alexey NIKOLSKY / Sputnik / AFP)