Nearly three-quarters of Republicans and a plurality of voters support President Donald Trump hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Washington, DC, this fall, according to a new Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday.
A new Morning Consult survey found that 73 percent of Republicans back a potential summit between Trump and Putin, and a plurality of voters, or 43 percent, also support a possible second meeting between the leaders of the United States and Russia.
Morning Consult conducted the poll of nearly 2,000 Americans following White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ announcement that National Security Adviser John Bolton asked Putin to Washington in the fall after Trump and Putin met in Helsinki, Finland, last week.
Another survey from Quinnipiac University found that 54 percent of American voters say that both Russia and the United States share the blame for the lackluster relations between the two nations, which echoes President Donald Trump’s remarks during the Helsinki summit that “both sides” were to blame for Russia and the United States’ complicated relationship.
Establishment Republicans have shunned the prospect of another meeting with President Putin. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the Senate Majority Whip (R-TX), said Trump should put another meeting with the Russian president “on the back burner for a while.”
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) told Politico, “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea at this point.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said if Putin comes to Washington, he and House Speaker Paul Ryan “have made it clear” he “will not be welcome” in the Capitol.
McConnell said, “Well, I can only speak for the Congress. The speaker and I have made it clear that Putin will not be welcome up here at the Capitol.”
On Tuesday, Ryan said invitations to a joint session of Congress is “something we reserve for allies.”
Last week, Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) noted that former Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-WA) invited then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin to address Congress in 1992.
“Remember the time a Democrat Speaker of the House invited a Russian President to address Congress? Dialogue is good,” Massie remarked in a tweet last week:
Remember the time a Democrat Speaker of the House invited a Russian President to address Congress? Dialogue is good. pic.twitter.com/iitwkbU8Lw
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 16, 2018
In an interview last week with Breitbart News, Rep. Massie charged that America and the world “will be better” as a result of the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki.
“Ultimately, not just America, but the world will be better off because of the dialogue that Trump has initiated that other presidents were too afraid to initiate,” Massie contended.
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