The White House confirmed Tuesday that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had an additional—previously undisclosed—chat at the G20 summit at Hamburg. The White House acknowledged the meeting only after the media reported about it. Who broke the story?
Political scientist’s scoop
The US media has been actively going after stories relating to Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia. This story, probably the biggest of them all, was first reported not by a journalist but by a political scientist
Friends at the G-20
Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia group, a political risk consultancy firm. On Monday, Bremmer published his weekly briefing for his clients. Buried deep in the report, was the news of the second meeting between the US president and his Russian counterpart, according to HuffPost
How did Bremmer come to know about the meet? Through his decades-long work with the Eurasia group, he had cultivated relationships with foreign officials. Bremmer did not reveal his sources but said he personally knew some of the attendees of the G-20 summit, HuffPost adds
‘Unnerving’
Bremmer told HuffPost that G-20 attendees found it specifically “unnerving” that Trump would walk over and sit down alone, at length, with Putin. He added that the pair demonstrated a collegial body language compared with Trump’s colder behaviour with other US allies