Sally Yates: Putin summit shows where Trump’s loyalties lie

Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said Thursday that President Trump’s actions during his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki show us “where his loyalties lie.”

“It wasn’t really a rhetorical, semantic faux pas that we were talking about here,” Yates told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Thursday. 

“It was what his words reflected. They revealed what our president is thinking and how he feels and where his loyalties lie,” she added.

Yates said Americans were “shaken” by Trump’s performance.

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“I think the startling reality for all of us is that we are faced with a situation where our president — the person whom we have entrusted to lead this country — isn’t all in for our nation,” Yates said.

“The startling reality for all of us is that we are faced with a situation where our president, the person whom we have entrusted to lead this country, isn’t all in for our nation. – Sally Yates, former acting attorney general pic.twitter.com/yUf8xQTKlE

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) July 20, 2018

Trump received widespread criticism after he refused to denounce Russia’s 2016 election interference at a presser with Putin. He tried to walk back his comments on Tuesday, saying he “misspoke” and accepts the U.S. intelligence assessment on Russia, before adding that it “could be other people also.”

Trump reignited the controversy on Thursday with a decision to invite Putin to the U.S.

Yates has been a persistent critic of the president.

Trump fired Yates from her position at the Justice Department last year when she refused to defend his travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries.