New Trump book defends 2018 Putin meeting, taunts rivals and threatens to imprison Meta’s Zuckerberg

NEW YORK (AP) — In a new book, former President Donald Trump calls his 2018 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki “a GREAT meeting” and threatens to imprison Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg if the tech mogul does anything this year akin to his $400 million donation to local election offices in 2020.

The book, entitled “Save America,” is a collection of pictures, anecdotes and reminiscences from Trump’s presidential campaigns and term in office. In it, Trump defended his widely criticized Helsinki meeting with Putin, in which Trump said he gave equal weight to the Russian president’s claims not to have interfered in the 2020 presidential election as to the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies.

“This was a very complicated day,” Trump writes underneath a photo from the summit press conference. “I had a GREAT meeting with President Putin of Russia, which was acknowledged by everyone. Then the Fake News started spreading False Stories.”

Trump’s statement that day drew immediate rebukes back home. His own national intelligence director responded by saying agencies found clear evidence that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election and was involved in “pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.”

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