Photo: US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands ahead of their meeting in Helsinki (Brendan Smialowski) | ©AFP

Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Monday he had given up “nothing” during his summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, following a week of withering, bipartisan criticism over his handling of the meeting.

“When you hear the Fake News talking negatively about my meeting with President Putin, and all that I gave up, remember, I gave up NOTHING,” Trump said on Twitter.

“We merely talked about future benefits for both countries. Also, we got along very well, which is a good thing, except for the Corrupt Media!”

Trump and Putin met in Helsinki a week ago behind closed doors, with no one else but their interpreters present. 

In the press conference and interviews afterward, Trump did not offer any specific details on any agreements he might have made with Putin, drawing scorn from Democrats, who sought to interview his interpreter.

Moscow has said “agreements” had been reached over the situation in Syria.

Trump faced intense criticism after the press conference, during which he appeared to support Putin’s “extremely strong and powerful” denial of subverting the 2016 US presidential election.

A day later, Trump was forced to attempt to walk back a comment in which he said “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia that had hacked the election.

“The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double negative,” he said.

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