Summit fever: Trump reaches for big moment with Putin

BY Patrick Garcia
Jul 15, 2018 01:08 PM

By the Associated Press

HELSINKI  — President Donald Trump has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice before. But he is eager to recreate in Finland the heady experience that he had last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

FILE - In this Tuesday, June 12, 2018 file photo, U. S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore. President Donald Trump has already met with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice, but he is eager to recreate in Finland the heady experience that he had last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That Singapore summit became a mass media event complete with powerful presidential images. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File/ MANILA BULLETIN) FILE - In this Tuesday, June 12, 2018 file photo, U. S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore. President Donald Trump has already met with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice, but he is eager to recreate in Finland the heady experience that he had last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. That Singapore summit became a mass media event complete with powerful presidential images. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File/ MANILA BULLETIN)

And that means a summit that becomes a mass media event complete with powerful presidential images.

Trump is ever the showman and insistent on establishing closer ties to Moscow. So he overruled his advisers and demanded the rituals and pageantry of a formal summit.

The president is drawing on his experiences as a marketer and salesman, which leave him convinced that his mastery of powerful images has been essential to his stunning political rise.