Only a small circle of people in the White House knew that President Trump ignored all-caps advice from his national security advisers for his phone call Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin — "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" him on his re-election — and one of them leaked it to The Washington Post, leaving Trump and his senior staff "furious and rattled," Axios reports. Each of the possible leakers "is trusted with sensitive national secrets," and "the speed and sensitivity of the leak prompted immediate finger-pointing within the administration."
Whatever the motive for the leak — concern over Trump's handling of Putin, anger that he ignored his aides, power games — one White House official told Jonathan Swan that Trump's congratulatory comment was just "the way Trump is. If he's doing business with you or working with you in some way, he's going to congratulate you." Plus, "the idea he's being soft on Russia is crap," the "furious" official added. Trump simply "doesn't want his personal relationship [with Putin] to be acrimonious," seeing that "leader-to-leader" congeniality as the key to rebuilding the U.S.-Russian relationship.
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