House Speaker Paul Ryan says it's no surprise that Russian President Vladimir Putin is assuring President Donald Trump that Moscow didn't meddle in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Ryan was asked at a news conference about Putin's comments made during a meeting with Trump on Friday on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany.
Ryan says he'd expect Putin "to deny what clearly he has done over the years, not just with the U.S. election but other elections throughout Europe."
The Wisconsin Republican says that "it comes as no surprise to me Vladimir Putin would deny what we know they did."
Ryan repeated that he doesn't believe Russian interference in the presidential election affected its outcome. But he says that "nevertheless, they tried."
Meanwhile, Russia's foreign minister says President Trump has accepted Putin's assurances that Moscow didn't meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Sergey Lavrov made the claim to reporters following Trump and Putin's lengthy meeting on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany.
That account appears at odds with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's description of the meeting.
Tillerson said the president was "rightly focused on how do we move forward from what may be simply an intractable disagreement at this point."
The Putin meeting comes midway through a hectic, four-day European visit for Trump, who addressed thousands of Poles in an outdoor speech in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday.Â
He met in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the summit host, and had dinner with two Asian allies - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in - to discuss North Korea's aggression.
The Group of 20 gathering of wealthy and developing nations is the first since Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, deeply disappointing Merkel and other U.S. allies who had hoped to maintain momentum in battling climate change. Undeterred, European leaders have vowed to press forward.
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President Trump's comments:
"President Putin and I have been discussing various things and I think it's going very well."
"We've had some very, very good talks. "
"We're going to have a talk now and obviously, that will continue."
"We look forward to a lot of very positive happening for Russia and for the United States and for everyone concerned"
President Putin through translator
"We spoke over the phone... but phone conversations are never enough definitely."
"I'm delighted to be able to meet you personally."
"And I hope that as you have said our meetings will yield positive results."
After the meeting Sec. Tillerson said, "The president opened the meeting with President Putin by raising the concerns of the American people regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. They had a very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject. The president pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement. President Putin denied such involvement, as I think he has in the past. The two leaders agreed though that this is a substantial hindrance in the ability of us to move the Russian-U.S. relationship forward, and agreed to exchange further work regarding commitments of non-interference in the affairs of the Untied States and our democratic process as well as those of other countries."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
