'The Fake News is going Crazy!': Trump says his meeting with Putin was better than the one he had with NATO

REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018.

• President Donald Trump said his Monday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland was "better" than his summit last week with NATO allies in Brussels.
• Trump has come under fire for seemingly favoring Russia, a US adversary, over NATO allies.

In a Tuesday morning tweet, President Donald Trump said his closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on Monday was "better" than his summit last week with NATO allies in Brussels.

"While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Sadly, it is not being reported that way - the Fake News is going Crazy!," Trump wrote.

During Monday's summit, Trump shocked the world and caused several high-profile members of the Republican Party to strongly rebuke him when he shrugged off Russian election meddling in 2016, casting doubt on the findings of his own intelligence agencies, and attacked his own law enforcement agency, the FBI.

During the NATO summit, Trump slammed the US's close allies on multiple occasions for not contributing enough, in his view, to their own defense and to NATO's budget. He also accused Germany of being "controlled" by Russia.