President Donald Trump on Tuesday downplayed the backlash over reports that he disclosed highly classified information to Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador, characterizing their Oval Office meeting last week as “very, very successful.”
Answering questions shouted by reporters at a joint appearance with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Trump applauded the performance of his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, who gave a press briefing addressing the meeting shortly beforehand.
“Our fight is against ISIS, as Gen. McMaster said, I thought he said, and I know he feels that we had actually a great meeting with the foreign ministers,” Trump said. “So we’re going to have a lot of great success over the next coming years and we want to get as many to help fight terrorism as possible. And that’s one of the beautiful things that’s happening with Turkey, the relationship that we have together will be unbeatable.”
The President reportedly shared highly classified intelligence provided by a key U.S. ally related to an Islamic State threat involving laptops on aircraft. The United States was not permitted to disclose the information, according to the Washington Post.