Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that President Trump raised the question of Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their two-hour conversation on Friday at the G-20 summit. Moscow and the White House will set up a joint working group on cybersecurity as a result of that conversation, NPR's Lucian Kim reports. Kim added that Lavrov said "Trump … heard Putin's statements that Russia didn't hack [the] election and accepts them," although U.S. officials are already disputing that characterization.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was present at the meeting along with Lavrov, also had a different interpretation of the conversation. "They had a very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject [of the election hacking]," Tillerson said. "The president pressed President Putin, on more than one occasion, regarding Russian involvement. President Putin denied such involvement, as I think he has in the past. The two leaders agreed that this is a substantial hindrance ... "
Tillerson added: "How do we move forward from here? Because it's not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution of that question between the two nations. So the question is what do we do now? And I think the relationship, and the president made this clear as well, is too important. And it's too important to not find a way to move forward."
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BBC News' Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, added that "according to Lavrov, Trump told Putin some circles in America were 'exaggerating' allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election."
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