A majority of Americans support President Donald Trump’s proposal to host Russian President Vladimir Putin for a follow-up summit in the fall, despite the bipartisan backlash Trump fielded following last week’s controversial summit in Helsinki, according to an American Barometer poll released Monday.

“The American voter has a very healthy and nuanced perspective on the issue,” HarrisX CEO Dritan Nesho said Monday on Hill.TV’s “What America’s Thinking.” The Hill and the HarrisX polling company run the American Barometer poll.

“They support the president on his position on the issues, as we saw, and actually have a pretty pragmatic view about how we should handle Russia,” Nesho said. “They believe in engagement with Russia, they believe in dialogue with Russia, and they’re not worried about an invitation to President Putin this fall.”

Fifty-four percent of those surveyed believe Trump’s proposal to host Putin in Washington, D.C., in the fall is a good idea, while 46 percent rejected the idea. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents were among those who approve of a second Putin summit.- READ MORE

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., on Sunday criticized President Trump’s meeting last week with Russian President Putin, and called the former “Apprentice” star “Putin’s apprentice.”

Waters, who was on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” said she was not surprised by the amount of criticism the president received.

“In fact, for months I’ve been trying to tell the American public that this president is dangerous that he’s in bed with Putin,” Waters told host Joy Reid. “Don’t forget this president can’t borrow money in the United States from any bank. This president is looking at Russia for his new money, financial playground.”

Waters accused Trump and his former campaign associates—or as she called them the “Kremlin clan”—of having some form of an agreement with Putin to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia in exchange for help in the 2016 presidential election.

“This president, I believe, has promised him (Putin) that, once he was elected, he would get those sanctions lifted,” she said, later adding, “I think he is Putin’s apprentice. He’s been under his tutelage for a long time now.”- READ MORE