'If We Could Get Along with Russia, That's a Positive Thing'

At his news conference today, President Trump made it clear that developing better relations with Russia would benefit U.S. vital interests.

TRUMP: “If we could get along with Russia, that’s a positive thing. We have a very talented man, Rex Tillerson, who is going to be meeting with them shortly. And I told him, I said, I know politically it’s probably not the best thing for me. The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s 30 miles off shore right out of the water. Everyone in his country would say, ‘Oh, that’s so great.’ That’s not great. I would love to be able to get along with Russia. You’ve had a lot of presidents that haven’t taken that attack. Look where we are now. So, if I can — now, I love to negotiate things, I do it really well and all that stuff, but it’s possible I won’t be able to get along with Putin. Maybe it is. But I want to just tell you, the false reporting by the media, by you people. The false, horrible, fake reporting makes it much harder to make a deal with Russia. And probably Putin said, you know, he’s sitting behind his desk, and he’s saying, ‘You know, I see what’s going on in the United States.’ They follow it closely. ‘It’s got to be impossible for President Trump to ever get along with Russia. Because of all the pressure he’s got with this fake story. Okay? And that’s a shame. Because if we could get along with Russia — and by the way, China and Japan and everyone. If we could get along, it would be a positive thing, not a negative thing.”