Donald Trump invites Vladimir Putin to the White House

Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the White House, amid an ongoing backlash over their Helsinki summit.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin shake hands during a joint press conference after their summit in Helsinki. Picture: Getty Images.

Donald Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to the White House, amid an ongoing backlash over their Helsinki summit.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted this morning: “President Trump asked @AmbJohnBolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.”

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

It comes after a hellish week for the US President, when he was forced to back down on his assertion that he believed the Russian President over his own intelligence agencies on the issue of Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election, then 24 hours later again ‘misspoke’ on Russian interference.

Last night Mr Putin threw his support behind his US counterpart, blaming ­“forces” in the US he says are willing to sacrifice Russian-US ties.

“We see that there are forces in the US that are easily ready to sacrifice Russian-American relations for their own ambitions,” Mr Putin said in a speech to Russian ambassadors gathered in Moscow.

“We see that there are forces in the US that put their narrow party interests higher than national ones.”

Mr Putin added that Russia was “nevertheless open to developing contacts with the US on the basis of equality”.