On Tuesday, news broke that in addition to their first meeting, which lasted almost three hours, President Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin met a second time at the G20 summit for almost an hour. And while Trump was accompanied to the first meeting by the secretary of State, the Russian prime minister, and two translators, the second time it was just him, good old Vlad, and a Russian translator over dinner — a breach in national-security protocol, according to Axios.
But the next day, the president tweeted an angry defense of the second meeting, and his surrogates piled on. Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s one-time campaign manager, told Fox News anchors that it was no big deal because all Trump and Putin were trying to do was interact with Melania Trump. To prove his point, the guy complimented the First Lady so many times that Fox ran out of photos to run in the background.
It’s a lot to keep track of, so here’s Lewandowski’s entire spiel with compliments in bold:
Forty people were at that dinner. Obviously the 20 G20 leaders and their spouses. Our best representative, who is stunningly beautiful and incredibly intelligent, sat next to Vladimir Putin at the request of the German chancellor. She had a conversation with Vladimir Putin, it was her dinner partner, for you know a few hours, big deal. And you know what the president did? He got up and he walked over and he saw his beautiful wife, the First Lady of the United States, and he had a conversation with her. How is this anything other than the president of the United States going over and seeing the First Lady, who by the way speaks five languages, is incredibly beautiful, and is incredibly intelligent, and is a great representative of our country?
We’re counting eight compliments in 43 seconds, but if you have an alternative number, please let us know. For the sake of journalism.
