Unlike in most foreign leader meetings, there was no note taker to compile an official record of what was said or what promises were made. What came next was historically unprecedented. As he held forth with Putin for a forty-six-minute joint news conference, Trump refused to endorse the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that the Russian government had tried to sabotage the U.S. election to help him win. In fact, he said he took the word of Putin over the collective assessment of his own intelligence agencies.
