Trump and Putin held second, undisclosed talk

Trump and Putin held second, undisclosed talk

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a second, previously undisclosed meeting earlier this month at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. 

The talk, during a dinner for G-20 leaders and their spouses, was first disclosed by Ian Bremmer, the head of the Eurasia Group, an international consulting firm. Bremmer said he was told about the meeting by two people who were at the dinner and watched Putin and Trump talk but could not hear what they said.

The dinner attendees said that the two presidents talked for an hour, he said.

White House officials subsequently confirmed the meeting in a statement Tuesday, characterizing the encounter as "brief."

Television coverage of the beginning of the dinner showed First Lady Melania Trump seated next to Putin. According to Bremmer, Trump, who was sitting next to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, got up midway through the dinner and sat next to Putin, talking "privately and animatedly." 

The two talked for roughly an hour, with no aides present and using only Putin's interpreter for translation, Bremmer said.

Trump responded angrily to news reports about the conversation with Putin, saying in a message on Twitter that the news accounts were "sick" and that "Press knew!" about the dinner.

Reporters certainly knew about the dinner. The press pool that sat outside the ballroom where the dinner took place saw both presidents leave around the same time, shortly after 11 p.m. local time.

But reporters had no way to know about what took place inside.

The White House did an extensive read out of Trump's formal meeting with Putin, which lasted more than two hours, but made no mention of the second, informal discussion. 

4:35 p.m.: This story was updated with the White House statement.

6:13 p.m.: This story was updated with Trump's tweets.

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