--- title: Trump: Mueller Probe 'Driven a Wedge' Between U.S., Russia description: President Trump appeared on Fox News for his first interview following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin canonical: https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/ author: Casey Quackenbush article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-07-17T02:56:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:53:19.079Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump: Mueller Probe Drove a 'Wedge' Between U.S. and Russia og:description: Here's what President Trump said after his meeting with Vladimir Putin og:url: https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt292c816f74779cfe/69893580e76ad26f1d63282c/gettyimages-1000225262.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3406 og:image:height: 1916 og:image:alt: President Trump And President Putin Hold A Joint Press Conference After Summit og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump: Mueller Probe Drove a 'Wedge' Between U.S. and Russia twitter:description: Here's what President Trump said after his meeting with Vladimir Putin twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt292c816f74779cfe/69893580e76ad26f1d63282c/gettyimages-1000225262.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Tells Fox News 'I Think We're Doing Really Well With Russia as of Today' > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Trump Comments on Hillary Clinton's Servers and Email During Press Conference [Watch (HLS stream): Trump Comments on Hillary Clinton's Servers and Email During Press Conference](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aKdGmDGY.m3u8) (1:29)  _Published 2018-07-16. Trump Comments on Hillary Clinton's Servers and Email During Press Conference_ by [Casey Quackenbush](https://time.com/author/casey-quackenbush/) ## Casey Quackenbush Jul 17, 2018 2:56 AM UTC  President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a joint press conference after their summit in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a joint press conference after their summit in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018. Chris McGrath—Getty Images by [Casey Quackenbush](https://time.com/author/casey-quackenbush/) ## Casey Quackenbush Jul 17, 2018 2:56 AM UTC Following a one-on-one summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki Monday, President Donald Trump again placed the blame on U.S. investigators for damaging ties between Washington and Moscow. During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, his first since the summit, Trump said a federal investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election has “driven a wedge between us and Russia,” referring to the probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a “witch hunt.” “Maybe we’ve just knocked down that wedge, but it has driven a wedge and President Putin said that,” Trump said, claiming that the meeting with his Russian counterpart made progress toward repairing the relationship. “I think we’re doing really well with Russia as of today, I think we were doing horribly before today,” Trump said. “I mean horribly, dangerously.” > [](https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/1019034741020987392) The Helsinki summit took place just days after the Justice Department [charged 12 Russian intelligence officials](http://time.com/5338172/rod-rosenstein-russian-hacking-charges/) with hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and state election systems. So far the investigation has brought 191 criminal charges against 32 people and three Russian companies. At a 46-minute joint press conference with Putin after the summit, Trump said Putin strongly [denied the charges](http://time.com/5339830/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-summit-helsinki-meddling/) and said he didn’t see “any reason” why the Kremlin would have interfered in the American electoral process. “I think it’s a shame… we’re talking about all of these different things and we get questions on the witch hunt,” Trump said. “And I don’t think the people out in the country buy it, but the reporters like to give it a shot. I thought that President Putin was very, very strong.” ## Transcript Where is the server? I wanna know, where is the server, and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others. They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be. But I really do wanna see the server. But I have confidence in both parties. I really believe that this will probably go on for a while. But I don't think it can go on without finding out. What happened to the server? What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Where are those servers? They're missing, where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton's emails? 33, 000 emails gone, just gone. I think in Russia they wouldn't begun so easily. I think it's a disgrace that we can get Hillary Clinton's 33, 000 emails. So I have a great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people I think that's an incredible offer, okay, thank you ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/"},"headline":"President Trump Tells Fox News 'I Think We're Doing Really Well With Russia as of Today'","datePublished":"2018-07-17T02:56:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:53:19.079Z","description":"President Trump appeared on Fox News for his first interview following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin","url":"https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/","keywords":["Donald Trump","onetime","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt292c816f74779cfe/69893580e76ad26f1d63282c/gettyimages-1000225262.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Casey Quackenbush","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/casey-quackenbush/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt292c816f74779cfe/69893580e76ad26f1d63282c/gettyimages-1000225262.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump And President Putin Hold A Joint Press Conference After Summit","caption":"President Trump And President Putin Hold A Joint Press Conference After Summit","creditText":"Chris McGrath—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/","name":"President Trump Tells Fox News 'I Think We're Doing Really Well With Russia as of Today'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Trump Comments on Hillary Clinton's Servers and Email During Press Conference","description":"Trump Comments on Hillary Clinton's Servers and Email During Press Conference","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/aKdGmDGY/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-07-16T16:25:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aKdGmDGY.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/","duration":"PT1M29S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5340533/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-hannity-interview/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```