Trump declares Putin summit a 'great success' and says the 'real enemy' is the 'Fake News Media'

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday

• President Donald Trump called his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin a "great success" and said he looked forward to a second meeting.
• He added in a tweet on Wednesday that the true enemy of the people is the "Fake News Media."

President Donald Trump doubled down on his claims that his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin was a success, adding that the true enemy of the people is the "Fake News Media."

"The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media," Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

He added: "I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace, North Korea and more.

"There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems...but they can ALL be solved!"

His tweets came hours after Putin also called the meeting a success, though the Russian president warned that Trump's opponents in the US are hampering progress between the two countries.

In his first statements since the summit in Helsinki, Finland, Putin said US-Russian relations are "in some ways worse than during the Cold War," but that meeting with Trump allowed them to start on "the path to positive change."

"It's naive to think that the problems would be solved in a few hours. But no one expected that," Putin said. "We will see how things develop further."

Trump has faced widespread criticism over his repeated back-and-forth explanation on what he said to Putin during the summit and whether he believes Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election on his behalf.

Trump tweeted earlier on Thursday that critics in the media "are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I'll probably have a good relationship with Putin."