Its a more confident putin. I first met Vladimir Putin a few days after that summit. He was still very much the former kgb officer who had risen from obscurity in a couple of years to become the leader of the kremlin. He was very eager to prove himself even to us american journalists. He read his briefing books and he wanted us to know he could reel off facts and figures. You wouldnt see him with that level of insecurity in his own office now. He needs america more than ever because for the last few years since 2014, and the illegal ann ann annexation of crimea, thats the first such armed takeover of territory. He has been an International Outcast ever since then in a coalition largely led and organized by the United States. Vladimir putin, of course, has been seeking readm mimitting to club. He said, i would like to invite you back into the g7. Its important to note how much on the ground he has compared to several years ago. He has a massive presence in syria, a massive base, troops on the ground setting the agenda in syria along with the iranians and assad. We spent years getting the russians out of the middle east. They are back in a big way. He has a base in serbia. He is busy according to latest reports interfering in macedonia. Doesnt want any of the other balkan republics to join nato. He wants to get President Trump to acknowledge this sphere of influence idea that is their geopolitical thing. The president was asked if Vladimir Putin the president said if Vladimir Putin asked him to halt military exercises, joint military exercises with the United States in the balaka states, he said he would consider that. But john bolton said its not on the table. You have a sense with the two guys, these are two alpha males squaring off. Its really putin would come late, he would make its intentional. He made trump wait for him. He came in later. Thats what the senior person does in a relationship. These are not coincidence. Its not like there was a traffic jam. Its really important to note what the russians are saying on state media. A couple of things they have said a state senator and ally of Vladimir Putin i will interview. Before that the state media said now is the real game. This helsinki meeting is the end game. It was just sort of passing through brussels and eu and britain. This is the real game. Helsinki was the eye on the prize, so to speak. Thats important this is important for Vladimir Putin. I think its worth reminding viewers, the Economic Situation that many in russia are facing. Vladimir putin is financially the country has been in trouble in large part because of sanctions and other things. Something like this where he is back on the world stage is certainly it works in his favor. His economy is onetenth the size of the u. S. Economy. Thats right. We continually play into president putins argument for his domestic political audience as well. Christiane made an important point. Where Vladimir Putin and trump actually have a similar world view and a view of great powers like russia, President Trump mentioned china, he said Vladimir Putin at the opening of this meeting, were going to talk about our good friend xi. It shows you President Trump is more comfortable with the notion that the three big men of the world would sit down, russia and china and the United States, rather than this postwar ii vision of multilateral web of alliances and partnerships of democracies. That is a notion that donald trump is not comfortable with. He is not a multilateral guy. He doesnt speak in the elevated language of international diplomacy. Its not just democracy. The west stands for peace and prosperity as well. Thats at stake right now. The economic we should point out, these are alliances which have prevented another world war. You look back world war i and world war ii. There has not been a global war on that scale since world war ii. Theres a reason for that. Its not by accident. Its the alliances which have been formed. Thats right. Its been worth it. Its been worth it. Is someone protesting . What is this . Someone was holding up a sign. Former u. S. Ambassador to nato who served two different president s in the United States said this im not sure whats i dont think we can see it unless somebody on the ground can. He is carrying a handheld sign. Whats going on, jim acosta . Reporter a reporter is being forcibly removed from this room right now. A man who identified himself with being the nation of progressive publication. Im not sure if thats accurate. Thats how he represented himself to Security Officials. They initially asked him to step out of the room, which he did peacefully. They brought him back in to get his stuff. He said the reason why im being removed, talking about limbsehi is that he had a sign. A sign talked about the Nuclear Test Ban treaty. I believe thats what i saw on the sign. Something to do with nuclear testing. As he held it up, Security Officials grabbed him and forcibly removed him from the room. I dont know if you saw that on camera. Its happening in real time in front of us. It was a scuffle between this reporter and the Security Officials here. All day long, Security Officials on both the white house side and the kremlin side have been trying to screen everybody, screen all of the journalists, make sure they get inside without any commotion. Then, of course, as soon as we get inside this president ial palace in helsinki, we had a commotion. Theres a security official coming back in. Not sure if he is u. S. , russian. He is removing the rest of the gentlema gentlemans equipment. That appears to be secret service. Anderson, i dont think it would be accurate to describe this as 100 totally completely a reporter being removed from the room because he was trying to do reporting. I believe it appears he was removed because he was carrying some kind of protest sign. He planned on causing a commotion. Obviously, were watching this unfold in real time. We obviously need to get more information about all of this. It appears that is exactly what took place here. This man, either who is a journalist or was posing as a journalist, had planned on holding up a sign during the press conference. He has been removed from the room quite forcibly. This was not somebody willing to go on his own. Jim, what is it you thought was said on the sign . We will try to rerack the video to see the small sign he was holding up. You said it was something you thought about nuclear something to do with Nuclear Weapons . Reporter yeah. Forgive me for looking at my phone. I did snap a picture of the sign. The sign said, Nuclear Weapons ban treaty. Thats what the sign said. I will climb off the chair right now. Hope you dont mind me doing that. We have the delegation coming into the room. The pompeo, the chief of staff john kelly at the white house, john bolton, National Security adviser, john huntsman, u. S. Ambassador to russia and others. It seems we are getting closer to this president conference getting started. We will let you take your seat. Theres Stephen Miller as well. We havent seen Something Like that for some time. Theres sarah sanders. We dont know who that person was who had that. Thats Sergei Lavrov there. If thats accurate, for all we know that could have been a question. We just dont know. It sounds pretty innocuous, what about the Nuclear Test Ban treaty . Thats one of the things we understand is under discussion today. Thats just talking now from far across the river, just in front, not being in the room. Hard to know what the person was holding up the sign. We dont know. Obviously, the it looks like this is about to take place. The principals are now on hand. We are seeing the kremlin spokesman. Wasnt he inside the lunch . He was in the lunch. I dont believe he was originally scheduled to be there. Originally, it was three on each side. They added a fourth. Glad to see there was one woman in both delegations, National SecurityCouncil Director for russia. Here is Vladimir Putin and president donald trump. Lets listen in. Translator thank you so much. Shall we start working, i guess . Distinguished mr. President , ladies and gentlemen, negotiations with the president of the United States, donald trump, took place in a frank and business like atmosphere. We can call it a success and fruitful round. The future of the relationship key issues of the global agenda. Its clear to everyone that the bilateral relationship are going through a complicated stage. Yet those impediments, the tension, the tense atmosphere essentially have no solid reason behind it. The cold war is a thing of past. The era of confrontation of the two countries is a thing of remote past, today both russia and the United States face a new set of challenges. Those include a dangerous maladjustment of mechanisms for maintaining security and stability, crises, the creeping threat of terrorism and transnational crime. Its the snowballing problems in the economy, environmental risks and other sets of challenges. We can only cope with this challenges if we join the ranks and Work Together, hopefully, we will reach this understanding with our american partners. Todays negotiations reflected our joint wish, our joint wish with President Trump to redress this negative situation in the bilateral relationship. Outline first steps for improving this relationship to restore the acceptable level of trust and going back to the previous level of direction on all mutual interests issues. As Major Nuclear powers, we bear special responsibility for maintaining interNational Security. Vital, we mentioned this during the negotiations, crucial that we fine tune strategic things. We note with suggestions. We believe it necessary to Work Together further to interact on the disarmament agenda, military and technical cooperation. This includes the extension of the Strategic Offensive arms limitation treaty. Its a dangerous situation with the global American Defense system. Its the implementation issue with the imf treaty. And nonplacement of weapons in space. We favor the continued cooperation in counterterrorism and maintaining cyber security. Id like to point out specifically that our special services are cooperating quite successfully together. The most recent example is their operational operation within the recently concluded World Football cup. In general, the contacts among special services should be put system wise basis should be brought to framework. Im reminded President Trump about suggestion to reestablish the working group on antiterrorism. We mentioned crisis not always that our postures dovetail exactly. The overlapping and mutual interests abound. We have to look for points of contact and interact closer in a variety of international forum. Clearly, we mentioned the regional crisis, syria. As far as syria is concerned, the task of establishing peace and reconciliation in this country could be the first showcase example of the successful joint work. Russia and the United States apparently can take leadership on this issue and organize the interaction to overcome humanitarian crisis and help Syrian Refugees go back to their homes. In order to accomplish this level of successful cooperation in syria, we have all the required components. Let me remind you. Both russian and American Military have useful experience of coordination of their action, established the operational channels of communication which permitted to avoid dangerous incidents and unintentional collisions in the air and the ground. Also crushing terrorists in the southwest of syria, the south of syria should be brought to the full compliance with the treaty of 1974 about separation of forces, about separation of forces of israel and syria. This will bring peace to golan heights. And bring more peaceful relationship between syria and israel and also to provide security of the state of israel. Mr. President paid special attention to the issue during todays negotiations. I would like to confirm that russia is interested in this development and this will act accordingly. Thus far, we will make a step toward creating a lasting peace in compliance with the respective resolutions of security council, for instance the resolution 338. Were glad that the Korean Peninsula issue is starting to resolve. To a great extent it was possible thanks to the personal engagement of President Trump who opted for dialogue instead of confrontation. We also mentioned our concern about the withdrawal of the United States from the jcpoa. The u. S. Our u. S. Counterparts are aware of our posture. Thanks to the Iranian Nuclear deal, iran began most controlled country in the world, submitted to the control of iaea, it effectively ensures peaceful nature of Iranian Nuclear program and strengthens the nonproliferation regime. We discussed crisis, we paid special attention to the implementation of minsk agreement. The United States could be more decisive in nudging the ukrainian leadership and encourage to work in this. We paid more attention to economic ties and economic operations. Its clear that both countries, businesses of both countries are interested in this. American delegation was one of the largest delegations in the st. Petersburg economic forum. It featured over 500 representatives from american businesses. We agreed, me and President Trump, we agreed to create High Level Working Group that would bring together cam tptains of russian and american businessmen. They know how to articulate this successful business cooperation. Let them think and make their proposals and suggestions in this regard. President trump mentioned issue of socalled interference of russia with the american elections. I had to reiterate things i said several times, including during our personal contacts, that the russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere in internal american affairs, including election process. Any specific material, if such things arise, we are ready to analyze together. For instance, we can analyze them through the joint working group on cyber security, the establishment of which we discussed during our previous contacts. Clearly, its past time we restore our cooperation in the cultural area in the humanitarian area. As far as i think you know that recently we hosted the american congressman delegation. Now its portrayed almost as historic event, although it should have been just a current affair, just business as usual. In this regard, we mentioned this proposal to the president. We have to think about practicalities. But also about the rational, the logic of it. We have to engage experts on bilateral relationship who know history and background of our relationship. The idea is to create an Expert Council that would include political scientists, former military experts in both countries who would look for points of contact between the two countries. That would look for ways on putting the relationship on the trajectory of growth. In general, we are glad with the outcome of our first full scale meeting because previously we only had a chance to talk briefly on international forum. We had good conversation with President Trump. I hope that we start to understand each other better. Im grateful to donald for it. Clearly, there are some challenges left when we were not able to clear all the backlog. But i think that we may the first important step in this direction. In conclusion, i want to point out that this atmosphere of cooperation is something that we are especially grateful for to our finnish hosts. Were grateful for finnish people and leadership for what they have done. I know that we have caused some inconvenience to finland. We apologize for it. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much. Thank you. I have just concluded a meeting with president putin on a wide range of Critical Issues for both of our countries. We had direct, open, deeply productive dialogue. Went very well. Before i begin, i want to thank the president of finland for hosting todays summit. President putin and i were saying how lovely it was and what a great job they did. I also want to congratulate russia and president putin for having done such an excellent job in hosting the world cup. It was really one of the best ever. Your team also did very well. It was a great job. Im here today to continue the proud tradition of bold american diplomacy. From the earliest days of our republic, american leaders have understand that diplomacy and engagement is preferable to conflict and hostility. A productive dialogue is not only good for the United States and good for russia, but it is good for the world. The disagreements between