This morning, your solitary reporter took great interest in the article in today’s Politico, “Putin willing to give Congress records of Trump's meeting with Lavrov.” Putin said that Russia is willing to give Congress any records of Trump’s communications with his Foreign Minister.
Putin also took a shot at Trump's critics, referring to the entire Trump-Lavrov scandal as “political schizophrenia.”
Maine’s senior senator, Republican Susan Collins, said that, yes indeed, Congress needs the transcripts, but not from Russia. “If there are transcripts, we need those transcripts…The idea that we would accept any evidence from President Putin is absurd… I wouldn’t trust any evidence that the Russians said they could provide,” Collins said today on CNN.
In the midst of all these rapidly changing developments, we asked associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones to tell us what’s going on.
“SR,” Jones said, “there are no transcripts. I just asked Trump about it and he laughed me out of the room. He said, ’do you really think I’m stupid enough to give the press ammunition against me’?”
So we immediately got in touch with associate solitary reporter Foma Kherhoshonsky in Moscow. He said, “Of course there are transcripts. Both Lavrov and Kislyak were wired. Trump said Russia’s justification for holding on to Crimea is right on, and Russia can grab as much of Ukraine as it wants to, as long as Trump can put a resort in there. He also told Lavrov he wants Putin to take out ISIS because Russia got itself into the ISIS Crisis by siding with Assad. He wants Putin to defeat ISIS with nominal American help, and then when ISIS is totally wiped out, he expects Putin to give him all the credit.”
“Trump also said he’s really looking forward to meeting Putin in person so they can sit down and roll the dice together."