Trump invites Putin to Washington. Next step of friendship?
What's the story
US President Donald Trump has instructed his top national security aide to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington later this year and the "discussions are already underway", the White House has said.
The announcement comes days after Trump and his Russian counterpart held their maiden summit in Helsinki, Finland on Monday.
White House Spokesperson Sarah Sanders announced the invitation on Twitter.
Twitter Post
Here is the official announcement by Sanders
In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs. President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) July 19, 2018
Details
'That's going to be special', says National Intelligence director
The tweet came hours after Trump tweeted that he was looking forward to meeting again with Putin to start implementing some issues they discussed during their summit earlier this week.
However, the date of Putin's visit to Washington has not been announced yet.
"That's going to be special," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Aspen security conference in Colorado.
Haters on point
Trump slammed repeatedly for not confronting Putin
US lawmakers blasted Trump for not backing the American intelligence community's claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election during his press conference with Putin.
Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican, had labeled his performance as "shameful".
The press conference in Helsinki was one of the "most disgraceful performances" by an American president in memory, Republican Senator John McCain had said.
Successful meeting?
Trump dismisses haters, plays 'Fake News' card
Trump, however, termed the summit a "great success" and rejected the outrage as "fuss" created by the "fake-news media".
"It was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the things discussed, including terrorism, Israel security, denuclearization, cyber-attacks, among others," he tweeted.
Information
Putin signals "several agreements" with the US President
Putin has signaled in the wake of his summit with Trump that he and the US President reached several agreements, but neither Trump nor the White House have confirmed any substantive agreements between the two countries.