Given his propensity to please Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Trump is not likely to raise the issue of election interference during the leaders' bilateral summit in Helsinki on July 16th. But if he does, Putin is prepared to stick to the script.
CNN:
"If the US President raises this issue, the Russian President absolutely will be ready to repeat once again that Russia had nothing to do with it and could not have anything to do with this thing that is surrounded by so many insinuations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday in Moscow.
Some members of the president's administration say he will broach the subject, but they made those declarations before Thursday tweet.
US national security adviser John Bolton and Vice President Mike Pence have both said that Trump would likely raise the election meddling issue during his meeting with Putin.
But ahead of the summit's official announcement on Thursday, Trump tweeted that Moscow "continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!"
Last November, Trump also said he believed Putin's denial that Russia did not seek to interfere in the 2016 election, despite a finding from US intelligence agencies that it did.
"He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One then after interacting with Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Russia ready to refute US election meddling allegations, spokesman says (CNN)