US officials relieved to not repeat 'debacle' of Putin 'running circles around Trump': CNN's Amanpour

CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday said that American officials have worked hard to avoid a "debacle" during this week's meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin like the one former President Donald Trump oversaw three years ago.

Among other things, Amanpour noted that President Joe Biden's team successfully got Putin to agree to show up first to the meeting, as the Russian president has in the past kept world leaders waiting by showing up as much as four hours late to summits.

"It is significant that the United States asked and got the agreement from Putin that he would come first to the meeting, would not hold up the whole affair, would not keep President Biden waiting, that there would be separate news conferences," she said. "The Americans didn't want the repeat of the disaster and the debacle of Putin running circles around Trump in Helsinki, which we were all at."

During a joint press conference with Putin three years ago, Trump indicated that he believed the Russian leader that he did not interfere in the 2016 election by ordering the hacking of the Clinton campaign's emails because Putin was "extremely strong and powerful in his denial."

Trump then said that he "didn't see any reason" why Russia would have tried to help him win.

Watch the video below.

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