welcome to "amanpour on pbs pbs." tonight, president trump hails his meeting with vladimir putin, but sides with russia over meddling in the 2016 elections. my exclusive interview with the host of this event, the president of finland. plus, all the latest reaction to today's events with william burns, former u.s. ambassador to moscow, who joins me from new york. and from moscow, the russian senator, and putin ally, alexi pushkov.

welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in helsinki, finland, where today it seemed the bedrock of diplomacy and national interests were all you up ended in one press conference, following the first proper meeting between russian president vladimir putin and president donald trump of the united states. after several hours, they came out to face the press, predictably enough, both praised a new day in relations between their two countries. but it all went awry over the issue of russian meddling in the 2016 u.s. elections. when pushed by u.s. reporters about the 12 russian military intelligence officials indicted in this case, president trump extraordinarily turned on american institutions. the u.s. democratic party and the fbi. while seeming to defend mr. 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 want to see the

server. but i have -- i have confidence in both parties. i have great confidence in my intelligence people. but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> now, the golden rule of american politics is that partisan attacks end at the frontiers, and no high official ever sides with a strategic competitor or rival. trump's attack to undermine his own intelligence agencies comes after a week overseas where laid into nato, germany, or in the uk and calling the eu a foe. the setting for this summit, helsinki, has a special history in cold war politics, going back to 1975, and meetings between then soviet and american president. history will record the deep significance of this one.

in part, it was the brainchild of the finnish president, sa auli niinisto. and there you are, welcome to the program. >> thank you very much. >> and we see you with the two presidents. it's no secret that you really wanted -- you believed they should get together, that relations between russia, the u.s. and the west were just too bad, and they needed to talk. >> i'm not the only one, actually. the whole west, if you want to call it that, has hoped that dialogue would continue or start again. this was also -- for example, two years ago in warsaw when nato had its meeting, it was one of the statements. >> were you surprised the way it ended up? i mean, you had met the two before they went into the meetings. you met them separately, right? >> yes. i met president trump earlier. >> right. you had breakfast with him. >> yep. >> and what did he say with you? what was his hope for this summit? >> actually, i wanted to talk a

bit about those fears that they had all over in europe, also in finland. you know, speculations, what is he going to do with nato, military exercises or something like that. like we now can say, they weren't at all at the table, which is i think positive. >> that's a positive thing that came out of this. he didn't say anything under mining nato or -- >> no fears, actually, came to truth. >> and what did you get from president putin? what was his desire from this summit? >> i heard afterwards. well, he didn't so much actually talk about -- i asked him something, and i had the -- well, i think that what he wanted to say is that there are several different things open. and they will continue.

and if they continue arms control, syria, ukraine, even, well, that is good. but no concrete results. and i do not believe that anybody expected them to suddenly have a deal. >> so you watched the press conference. you obviously weren't at their bilateral meetings, but you watched the press conference. >> yeah. >> it was sort of okay. it was on track for the first half, and as soon as the reporters started asking about the fbi, or rather the mueller investigation, the indictments and the election meddling, it took a turn that everybody was really surprised by. there's a huge amount of criticism from the united states, including from the president's own party. were you surprised by how it devolved? >> unfortunately, i have to say that i leave that all for the investigation. >> i just mean the press conference. >> yes, but i mean, the

substance. >> the substance, absolutely. i fully understand. were you surprised to see a president, a u.s. president, essentially exonerating vladimir putin, and talking against his own domestic rivals? >> well, except that i want to leave it to investigation. i'm also a diplomat. so i'm not going to -- >> respond to that. >> yeah. >> so what message, then, do you think -- what do you think vladimir putin left this summit with? everybody said that for him, this was a good thing, obviously, because he was, you know, he's been isolated over ukraine, crimea. and there are sanctions on him. and here he is, you know, on an equal foot beiing with the prest of the united states in helsinki. what do you think he left with? >> i think that for him it was important to be in -- equal foot with the american president. but actually, he left also with a kind of burden.

those big issues, if they continue, they should be solved somehow. and russia has the key for very many presidents. >> how worried are you still about russia? helsinki, finland, is not a member of nato. but you are sort of in the partnership for peace. you were at the nato summit. historically, you had a very special cold war role, as i indicated. >> yeah. >> but the cold war is over. and you turned west. >> well, actually, we have always felt as a western nation. but yes, we are a member of eu. we are an enhanced partner of nato. we have bilateral defense military cooperation with several countries, including usa. so i wonder, describe

finland during the cold war. you had to bow to the east while not mooning the west. >> that might be true, in some days in '50s, maybe. but you have to remember also that finland was the only country where stalin attacked but couldn't conquer. >> and you have a massively long -- >> so that is our history, actually. >> and right now, over the last couple of weeks, there have been russian military exercises, a mock sort of invasion, on a piece of territory that is russian, but it happens to be in the gulf of finland. >> yes. >> exactly. what do you feel as the finnish president, as the finnish people, when those kinds of exercises go on? and should the baltic nations or other nations in that area worry about president putin's intentions? >> i do not believe that russia is going to attack finland.

they realize very well that nato presence in baltic countries means that any kind of military actions there, that would lead to something totally else than just fighting in baltics or in finland. no, that would mean something like third world war. and everybody knows that there is not a winner. there might be somebody who is losing less, but not a winner. >> and do you think that after this week of diplomacy with allies and also with the competitor vladimir putin, do you think that the nato allies, the western allies, feel confident of the commitment by president trump of american leadership and american support for these alliances that have been underpinning the world order for the last 70 years? >> two points. first, president trump himself

said after brussels meeting that he's now satisfied. well, i hope this is his real feeling. but what comes to nato countries? to some extent i understand the demand of meeting what has been a creed. that is 2% of your gdp. and that is not only president trump's demand. it has been ongoing from the '50s, i guess. but he has put -- well, a bit more -- >> spin on it. a bit more urgency on it. >> yes. >> and what does finland come away from this summit with? >> well, like i said, everybody thought that dialogue is important. when i was asked whether finland is ready to host, sure we are. because we see that dialogue is important. >> well, let's hope this dialogue progresses in a constructive way. >> otherwise it's not important.

>> there you go. >> yep. >> president sauli neigh niinisto, thanks. >> thank you. so president trump touted his accomplishments in what he considers a successful summit with vladimir putin today. listen to what he said. >> our relationship has never been worse than it is now. however, that changed as of about four hours ago. . >> but has it really changed? william j. burns was america's ambassador to russia under president george w. bush, and he is a former deputy secretary of state, under president obama. and he joins me now from new york. a very diplomatic host, the president of finland. secretary burns, what do you think and how do you read what happened here today? and you cannot avoid the fireworks at that press conference. >> yeah, christiane, it's nice to be with you.

i think that press conference was the single most embarrassing performance by an american president on the world stage that i've ever seen, anyway. to stand alongside a foreign adversary and rival and basically give him a pass as he denied interference in our elections, for which we have him dead to rights. to stand alongside him and essentially throw your own law enforcement and intelligence community under the bus, to stand alongside him while he argued that he should be the fireman in a place like syria, where, in fact, he's been one of the principle arsonists responsible for large parts of that catastrophe. i think that's all pretty appalling. >> so you just heard the president of finland saying he hosted this because so many people believed there was a need, a necessity, to try again to reset relations between the united states, the west and president putin of russia.

do you think anything was achieved? do you think they have reset in any way whatsoever as president trump says? and also as president putin said? >> i mean, i'm the last person who needs to be convinced that it's important to try to manage what is a very complicated and often adversarial relationship with russia in a sober and realistic way. so it's important to rebuild some guard rails of the relationship. the arms control architecture built up since the late soviet period is beginning to fall apart. we've got a new start treaty on strategic nuclear weapons that's going to expire in a couple years. it's a good thing to resume conversations about that with the russians. but i think we have to be realistic about this and we have to be honest about the profound differences that still separate us on a lot of issues. so it's an argument for stepping out military to military context, diplomatic context. but it's also an argument to be realistic. and that's what tough-minded diplomacy is about. and what we saw today, i don't think is really about diplomacy.

diplomacy is not just dialogue untethered to history and strategy. diplomacy is not just getting along with other countries. it's about the tough-minded promotion of american interests. and diplomacy is democrat not about winging it. especially with vladimir putin who never wings anything. >> well, i want to play you this -- or perhaps i'll even read it to you. no, it is actually a sound bite from president trump, when he was asked about the state of relations before going into the summit with these two nations. this was his assessment. just take a listen. >> i hold both countries responsible. i think that the united states has been foolish. i think we've all been foolish. we should have had this dialogue a long time ago. a long time, frankly, before i got to office. and i think we're all to blame. >> so, of course, that was the press conference. he's basically saying all sides are to blame for the

deterioration of the relationship. look, you were ambassador there. you were deputy secretary of state. what are the facts of this relationship, so people are absolutely clear? >> it's been a complicted relationship for a long time. but i think, you know, what the president said is a misreading of recent history. what we've seen in russian behavior and russian relations with the united states and with the rest of the world in the last few years, i think, has been a pretty clear record of taking aggressive steps. ukraine in 2014 and syria in 2015 and our own elections in 2016. so i think it's a false assumption to simply equate, you know, everybody in this -- in this picture as the president seemed to do. in his earlier tweet, you know, earlier today, he seemed to suggest that this was all about american foolishness. i think it is an even more exaggerated statement of the same thing. >> precisely. and i wonder what you make of the fact that he also in an interview called the eu a foe.

he was talking about trade, but he lumped the eu in with china, with russia, with all sorts of other nations, as well. and to that point, you know, victoria noonin, the former bipartisan u.s. ambassador to nato and other positions, said this whole trip, this whole week abroad, would either cement american leadership of the alliances and the world order, or sign the death knell for american leadership. how do you assess now the end of this week of president trump's travels? >> it's been pretty depressing. because i think what you've seen in president trump's comments, as well as his actions, has been, you know, a tendency to be totally dismissive of the institutions, the alliances, the partnerships that in a way set the united states apart from lonelier big powers like china and russia. those are our source of leverage in conducting diplomacy with important countries like russia. and that dismissive attitude, calling the european union a foe, i think is ridiculous.

and it not only is ridiculous on its face, but it undercuts american leverage on a very complicated international landscape. >> and there was certainly an issue that i'm sure you -- you know, is very close to you, and that is the iran nuclear deal. you saw that president putin robustly defended the iran nuclear deal and told president trump and the world that iran has been living up to its obligations under the deal. and, of course, you heard president trump say that they are trying to do everything they can to isolate iran, and they were talking about potential deal in syria. where do you think that is going to go, just on a separate issue, the iran nuclear deal? where is that going to end up? >> well, i admire the efforts by our european partners, as well as by the russians and chinese, to hold that deal together. my fear has long been, though, that once the united states pulled out of the deal in the absence of any evidence of iranian noncompliance, what we're going to see is kind of

death by a thousand cuts. as it becomes clearer and clearer to iranians that, you know, there aren't economic benefits as significant as they once had hoped, and their hopes were exaggerated to start with. and you have a supreme leader and the people around him who are in some ways anxious to be able to say i told you so. so you couldn't trust the americans. you know, this deal was not worth it. and so that's my concern that over time, it becomes harder and harder to hold it together. and then i think we put ourselves in a position where you can see a drift -- you know, toward the potential of not just increased tensions, but particularly conflict in a part of the world where we have seen, you know, more than our share of conflicts in recent years. >> and just finally, ambassador burns, what did the u.s. -- what did donald trump do for the united states and for the western alliance that he could take away and count as a success from today's summit? because everybody said just by having it, vladimir putin emerges the winner. >> yeah, i think putin came into the meeting in helsinki already

with a kind of political victory, in part because this put him on the same stage as a peer of the president of the united states. it enabled him to say at home that you can't isolate russia, that we're back at the table of great powers. it enabled him to argue that we're turning the page in some ways. but i think the only thing i could point to is, a., i do think having diplomatic contact, if it's well-managed, and it's well thought through and it's connected to strategy is a good thing. i think the resumption, which seemed to be indicated in the press conference of syria's conversations about where we go next in arms control, is important, because the united states and russia, as the world's two nuclear super powers do have unique capabilities, as well as unique responsibilities on those issues. so i'd say that's a modest step forward, potentially. but as i said before, i think a lot of the rest of what we saw does real damage, not just to the united states, but also to the way in which our allies and

partners look at us around the world, and the way in which other rivals and adversaries will try to take advantage of us. >> former ambassador, former deputy secretary of state, william burns, thank you for joining us from new york. and now the russian president, vladimir putin, began today's press conference on an optimistic note. listen to him. >> past. >> so chairman of the foreign affairs committee, he tweeted today that russia and the united states decide the fate of the world, and that, quote, eyes of the world are fixed on helsinki today. and he's joining me now from moscow. alexi, welcome. tell me what you took away from today's summit, and especially that of press conference.

who do you think came out the winner, if i might put it that way? >> well, i think that both sides. because basically, both russia and the united states were losing, to my mind, from this extremely bad relationship, which we are living through for the last years. we were at a dead point in our relations. with the exception of some context between our military and syria. i cannot even say what kind of relationship we had, since the appointment of the new secretary of state, mr. pompeo in april. there was not a single conversation between him and sergey lavrov, the head of the russian foreign ministry for three or four months. i don't think it's a normal situation between two leading powers, two nuclear super powers. so i think that both sides have won, that they have moved from this dead point in the relationship, which is a dangerous thing, basically.

because both the united states and russia play an extremely important role in today's world. and also they go to conflict. it will be a world conflict. so i think it was a victory for both sides. >> so there is no doubt that they both play a really important role. i need to ask you, though, even you -- even the russians must have been surprised, pleasantly, probably, that president trump seemed to side with president putin in the matter of the meddling in the u.s. elections. siding against his own intelligence and against the weight of evidence in the u.s. what did you even think when you heard that in the press conference today? >> well, i think that it was the position of the president of the united states, and i take it at face value. and basically that's it. >> okay. well, let me put it this way then. after this week with the nato summit, and you saw the sort of disarray there, you saw the piling on prime minister may. you saw him calling the eu a

foe. many in russia, even on state television, have said we never believed we could see american president doing president putin's work for him. you know what i mean. politically, sort of questioning the alliance. do you feel that way? >> well, i feel that the question you're asking me is more for a debate in the united states. i am definitely not the person -- >> no, it was russian-state television. >> president trump's statements -- russian-state television can say a lot of things. you're asking me. if you're asking me, then i'm telling you that whatever mr. trump did in brussels, what kind of relationship he's building with his nato partners, is something we observe, of course, very closely. but i will definitely not criticize him for this or support him in this. i think that this is between the united states and its allies.

between trump and european leaders. and the kind of relationship they are building between themselves, it's the western alliance affair. i'm quite ready to talk about the russian position on numerous issues. but, you know, if you ask me whether the western alliance looked today weaker than it used to be, well, i think that the western alliance has lived through difficult times a lot in history. and so i don't think that nato will fall apart. i don't think the united states will go out of -- will leave nato. i don't think that nato will be dramatically weakened. i think all this talk about this catastrophic consequences of the present development, i think they are largely overblown. it's something which probably -- it does not come to reality. nato is a very strong alliance. the united states are very interested in nato. europeans are interested in the united states. those are the -- you know, the permanent things. and then there are different fluctuations and personal relationships. i'm not inclined, really, to give too much attention to this.

>> well, that says a lot about your analysis of this. can i ask you one thing, we were all surprised to hear president putin when directly asked, say that, yeah, i wanted president trump to win in the election. so my question to you is, what do you all see as president trump's ability to maneuver? president putin is very pragmatic, he's been around the block for decades. he knows the lay of the land. perhaps better than president trump does. what can you expect in terms of bilateral relations from the president? >> well, i think that they have -- they have tried to make a new start in the relationship. as i said, the relationship was at a dead point. the united states closed the russian consulate in san francisco, we closed the consulate in st. petersburg, about 100 russian diplomats were sent away from the united

states. and so frankly, i was asking myself where it will all go, you know. and when will it all end. what kind of destructuring of our relationship will happen next? and when something happens, which is bringing some normalcy to the relationship, the presidents speaking between themselves, it's a good thing. it's why we in russia are quite happen with the summit. >> we will see where this leads to next. thank you so much for joining us from moscow tonight. after an extraordinary day, the sun still has not yet set on helsinki. it is late at night, but that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs, and join us again tomorrow night.

christian: this is "beyond 100 days" on pbs. the american president saying he has no reason to believe russia meddled in the u.s. election. katty: mr. trutch said he asked mr. putin about it and takes his denial about it at face value. president trump: all i can do is ask the question. president putin, he just said it is not in russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. christian: the u.s. president met vladimir putin one-on-one with no staff for over two hours. we may never know exactly was said. mr. putin was asked if he has compromising material on trump and denies it. well, sort of.