. we re back here at the g20 summit in argentina. president trump is skipping any the formal one-on-one meetings with crown prince mohammed bin salman and vladimmir putin. do you believe that s a missed opportunity to hold these two leaders accountable? i believe that s the only reason to have meetings with these two individuals is to hold them accountable and be as stern about that as possible. since the president has communicated that he s not interested in holding him accountable and he s proven in the past to not be willing to stand up to putin, it s probably a smart decision on the white house to not have him have the meetings and be a let down and more of an embarrassment. the g20 is about diplomacy. it s about the chance to get things done. missed opportunities are something you have to look at when it comes to meetings you re
g20 with one notable exception. russia s vladmir putin . the white house insists that has nothing to do with the russia investigation. down in argentina president trump appears to be trying to tango his way out of one dip employee m diplomatic dance. thank you so much. reporter: the president suggested his decision to scrap a formal meeting had nothing to do with the russia investigation. it was in response to moscow s escalating tensions with ukraine. yukraine. we don t like what happened. we re not happy about it. nobody is. hopefully they ll be able to settle it out soon. we look forward to meeting with mr. putin. on the basis of what took place with respect to the ships and
cancels those meetings it feeds into this impression of weakness and that s what putin is taking advantage of. he s taking advantage of the united states because he reads weakness in the united states and how we react. he s going to continue to be a bully as long as we don t stand up to him. thanks to robert mueller we know one of the president s closest associations was communicating directly with the kremlin about the trump tower moscow project. cnn has learned they floated the idea of giving vladmir putin a penthouse in that building, in that trump tower. you re the former cia director. how concerning is that to you? well it s very concerning because it s essentially providing a prescribe to a foreign leader in allowing him to have some kind of plush suite
the white house says the mueller investigation undermines the u.s. relationship with russia right now. you think they have a point. i think there s probably a case to be made that putin looks at trump perhaps as damaged goods as a result of the impact of the mueller i venvestigation. it s weak case. russia is why the u.s.-russia relationship is in bad shape. it s their interference in our election. their aggression in ukraine and the failure to help bring civil war in syria to an end. that s what s really driving this relationship down so far as it s gone. i think trump is distracted, he himself is causing problems bilaterally and multilaterally because he can t let go. we re covering this g20
that s obviously what the position is. reporter: at the g20 putin is making the rounds. talking to crown prince mohammed bin salman. another leader president trump may only see briefly as the u.s. is distancing themselves from the kingdom in riad. putin was all smiles with the prince. president is kscheduled to meet with other world leaders includie ining china. there are some rumbles inside the gop over mr. trump s changing stories on that moscow project. one said it would have been a different campaign in 2016 had the public known about that project. wolf. good point. thank you very much. let s talk a bit more about all of this. president of the united states is here on the world stage. he s under a lot of pressure in