Source: thehill.com/homenews/administration/342589-ian-bremmer-trump-and-putin-held-second-informal-meeting-during-g-20
President Trump held a second, informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg earlier this month, according to Ian Bremmer, the president of the international consulting firm Eurasia Group.
The meeting took place during the G-20 heads of state dinner, according to Bremmer, hours after Trump's formal bilateral sit-down with Putin.
In that conversation, Trump spoke with the Russian leader for roughly an hour, joined only by Putin's translator. The meeting had previously gone without mention by the White House.
That Trump was not joined in the conversation by his own translator is a breach of national security protocol, Bremmer noted, though one that the president likely would not know about.
Trump and Putin met for a formal discussion during the G-20 summit — a meeting that was scheduled to last 30 minutes but exceeded two hours.
Bremmer said in an interview with Bloomberg's Charlie Rose that the rapport that Trump established with Putin during the summit is "clearly his best personal relationship" with a G-20 leader.
"Never in my life as a political scientist have I seen two countries — major countries — with a constellation of national interests that are as dissonant, while the two leaders seem to be doing everything possible to make nice and be close to each other," he said.