President Trump chimed in on Twitter to downplay the Russia scandal that has ramped up scrutiny on the White House in the last few days, while touting stock market gains and jobs numbers.
Stock Market hit another all-time high yesterday – despite the Russian hoax story! Also, jobs numbers are starting to look very good!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2017
When revelations began to trickle out that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. — along with his top advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and then campaign chair Paul Manafort – met with Kremlin-tied figures during the campaign, Trump at first was slow to weigh in on the accusations.
He finally defended Don Jr. with a statement read by a spokesperson Tuesday. The President later tweeted in support of his son’s appearance on Fox News and said in an interview with Reuters Wednesday that “many people would have held that meeting.”
Since the June 2016 meeting was first reported a week ago, the younger Trump’s son’s initial claims that he didn’t knew who was meeting with were undermined by emails about the meeting posted by Donald Trump Jr. as the New York Times was about to report them. The emails showed that Trump Jr. believed he would be receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton from the figures he was meeting with.