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Tillerson says US expected Putin's denial

Published July 09,2017
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says he and President Donald Trump didn't expect anything other than a denial from Vladimir Putin that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election when they all met in Germany.

Speaking Sunday in Ukraine, Tillerson said Trump's conversation with Putin on election meddling went "about the way we expected" and that the most important thing is to make sure it never happens again.

He was asked, but did not answer directly, if Trump had accepted Putin's denial as Russian officials have claimed. Tillerson was the only other American official in the room when Trump and Putin met on Friday.

But, Tillerson said he didn't believe the U.S. and Russia would ever come to a common understanding of what happened.