Even if I get Moscow as ‘retribution,’ critics will say it's not good enough – Trump

No matter how well his meeting with Vladimir Putin goes - and even if he was gifted the entire city of Moscow - the media and Democrats will say it's not good enough, Trump tweeted before the one-on-one session.

The US president wrote on Sunday evening that he was on his way to Helsinki, and that he was "looking forward to meeting with President Putin tomorrow." He went on to state that he knows what the response will be from the mainstream media and the left.

Trump's comment does indeed come amid speculation from politicians on both sides of the aisle - and the Atlantic - ahead of the meeting, as well as amid a frantic mainstream media landscape.

Democrats have been extremely vocal about their opposition to Trump's meeting with Putin. Last week, top members of the party in Congress called on the US president to cancel the meeting.

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"President Trump should cancel his meeting with Vladimir Putin until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they won't interfere in future elections. Glad-handing with Vladimir Putin on the heels of these indictments would be an insult to our democracy," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, in a statement.

Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, chimed in with a similar statement on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, told reporters that he was concerned about the president's "ad-hoc" style of going into meetings and "winging it," also urging him to cancel the summit.

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When it became clear that Trump was going to be following through with his plans to meet Putin, eight top Democrats attempted to reach a last-minute compromise.

“If you insist on meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday, we write to urge that you include senior members of your team and not meet one-on-one with Mr. Putin, as reportedly planned,” a group of eight senators wrote in a letter to Trump on Saturday.

Republicans are also upset, with US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) speaking out on Saturday, saying the summit "should not move forward" unless Trump is willing to "confront Putin from a position of strength and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world."

Meanwhile, the US media are almost competing in providing their audience with most bizarre conspiracy theories about possible collusion between Trump and Putin an a renewed push to promote the narrative that has become increasingly threadbare over the last couple of years.

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