President Donald Trump is preparing for what may be his most important, or at least, most anticipated meeting with a foreign leader yet.
Friday, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, for the first time Trump will come face to face with the leader whose name has dominated his presidency: Vladimir Putin.
Even the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev is weighing in on how the two men should behave.
“First of all, it’s good that this meeting will finally take place, but it’s a pity that this is happening only now, and so far our countries do not have a joint constructive agenda. It takes a lot of time to catch up,” he was quoted as saying.
And if the impending meeting between Trump and Putin didn’t already have you thinking about Reagan and Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader brought it up.
“We now need an impulse from the leaders, as happened in Reykjavik in 1986,” Gorbachev said. “We must put everything on the negotiating table and establish a mechanism for interaction, not for any single items, event important, but for all problems,” he continued.
Meanwhile, in Washington, Democrats are calling on President Trump to “have the courage” to address election meddling with Putin.
Senior Democrats in the Senate sent the president a letter Thursday saying he will be committing a “severe dereliction” of his duties if he fails to confront Putin about the election.
Trump has said he believes Russia meddled in the presidential election, but suggests other countries may have as well.
It’s unclear what may or may not be on the agenda for the two men to discuss.