Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Obama Administration Secretary of State John Kerry lashed out at President Donald Trump for “kowtowing” to Russian president Vladimir Putin, calling the two leaders’ meeting, “disgraceful.”
WATCH:
“I found it to be one of the most disgraceful remarkable moments of kowtowing to a foreign leader by an American president that anyone has ever witnessed,” @JohnKerry tells @FaceTheNation of President Trump’s performance at Helsinki summit. https://t.co/Na6EXkte4W pic.twitter.com/qq1zLvcnMs
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 22, 2018
“I found it to be one of the most disgraceful remarkable moments of kowtowing to a foreign leader by an American president that anyone has ever witnessed,” Kerry told Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.
“It wasn’t just that it was a kind of surrender. This is dangerous. The president stood there and did not defend our country. He stood there and did not defend the truth,” Kerry added.
Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, and the press conference that followed, has met with a bipartisan chorus of criticism. Apparently embarrassed, the White House walked back statements made during the meeting in Helsinki, and the president has tweeted several times since, attempting to clarify statements he made in Helsinki.
But of all the critics who have stepped forward, Kerry might be the least qualified to judge “kowtows” made on the international stage. While serving as the Obama Administration’s top diplomat, Kerry negotiated a disastrous “nuclear deal” with the Iranian Mullahs, and in the months since being booted from office, Kerry has done his best to undermine Trump’s authority among world leaders, even warning members of the Palestinian Authority that they should “wait” until 2020 to made deals with the American government.