Following the announcement of 12 specific indictments against Russia for hacking and infiltration attempts on voting systems, Democrats are calling for Trump to cancel his Putin meeting.
July 13, 2018

Democrats are rolling out unified demands for Donald Trump to cancel his private meeting with Vladimir Putin. Senator Mark Warner held a press conference earlier today where he demanded that meeting be canceled, saying that there needs to be other Americans in the room. He also hit Trump hard for blaming the Mueller investigation for deteriorated relations with Russia.

"No, Mr. President, the reason why relations with Russia are difficult is because Russia and its agents interfered dramatically in the 2016 elections. So going forward, there should be no one-on-one meeting between this president and Mr. Putin. There needs to be other Americans in the room," Warner said.

Secondly, if the president and his team are not willing to make the facts of this indictment a top priority of the meeting in Helsinki, then the summit should be canceled.

When asked specifically what concerned him about Trump's planned meeting with Putin, Warner was clear: "I've been concerned for some time that the President's ad hoc style of going into meetings and winging it isn't appropriate, particularly when you're dealing with someone like Vladimir Putin, who's been on the world stage for 20 years, former KGB agent. He will come in with his facts, with maps, and I'm afraid that actually the president could be taken advantage of."

He continued, "Equally important is I want to make sure that other Americans hear that the president makes this issue of Russian interference a priority in the meeting and it's not something that's simply sloughed off with a quick response from Putin saying he didn't do anything. And that's why if he and his team are not willing to make the subject of this indictment of Russian interference a top priority in Helsinki, then the meeting should be canceled."

Following that press conference, the calls from Democrats started to thunder onto social media:

Even former Republican David Jolly chimed in:

The hashtag is #CancelTheSummit, where you'll find more.

It is about time, though, for Trump to check in with his handler, a meeting which likely cannot be canceled. I'm sure he will once again tweet something like he did at this time last year, when he claimed he and Putin were working on "an impenetrable cyber security unit."

Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Cohen calls this what it is: An act of war.

If that attack is an act of war (it is), and if Trump meets with Putin, then he is actively collaborating with the enemy. We all know what that's called, right?

UPDATE:

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