Donald Trump challenged status quo during Helsinki summit with Putin: Rep. Andy Biggs Ignore the howls of Democrats and establishment Republicans. The Trump-Putin summit was a good first step toward normal, diplomatic relations.

Andy Biggs | USA TODAY

I am bemused by those who are judging the success or failure (the pundits claiming the latter) of the Helsinki summit based on a few sentences in a news conference.

The complainers should take a step back and reassess. The media event may not have been a perfect 10, but it wasn’t a zero either.

What did we learn? That President Donald Trump is consistent in his shakeup of the status quo. He promised to be a change agent, someone who consistently puts America's interests ahead of other nations. The lesson here is that he meant what he said.

We are seeing the rapprochement with Russia that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pursued, and former President Barack Obama surreptitiously hoped for.

The idea is to avoid Cold War 2.0

President Vladimir Putin said it best when he noted that Trump is an advocate for the United States and Putin is an advocate for Russia. The search for points of commonality between the nations is important if we are to avoid a pointless Cold War 2.0.

The two leaders agreed to continue working with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protect Israel and the Golan Heights at the same time that Russia vowed to leave Syria after ISIS is wiped out of that beleaguered nation.

Trump already pressed economically successful, defense-dependent German Prime Minister Angela Merkel to quit enriching Russia while demanding that the U.S. bear the burden of defending Germany. That message was not lost on President Putin.

On the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump asserted and Putin concurred that Trump pressed the Russian leader vigorously on the issue. Putin makes the dubious claim that he and the Russians are innocent. I don’t believe that.

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But look at the box that Trump was in. The interference happened on the watch of the previous administration which looked upon our “number one geopolitical foe," as Mitt Romney described Russia in 2012, with sleepy eyes. The persistent conflation by Democrats of the election investigation and the electoral outcome has confused many Americans. Lost on them is that, so far, the only Russia-related conspiracy during the 2016 campaign was the so-called Steele dossier funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

That leaves us with the oddly conspicuous timing of the Justice Department’s Rod Rosenstein show. The man who is the de facto attorney general held a showy news conference to announce the otherwise meaningless indictments of 12 Russians a few days before the summit. To what end? To remind the American public that Putin is a bastard who tried to impact the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Trump.

Trump might have pressed Putin publicly to impress upon the world that he is tougher than Putin, but then the Democrats would be howling like they did when he pressed Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May, that he is exacerbating an already dangerous relationship. The president’s statements were more conciliatory and have been rewarded with the Republican establishment and D.C. swamp Democrats howling that he’s a “traitor” and other ridiculous claptrap.

Trump is trying to defuse tensions

The summit is a first step to a hopeful normalizing of relations with Russia. Trump quickly reached accord with Putin on several key issues. He is trying to defuse a tense relationship.

The base of the Republican Party understands that they are living in a country with a booming economy thanks to Trump policies that many Democrats disparage. Independents and Democrats who crossed over to vote for Trump recognize that he is trying to keep his promise to put America first. That’s why he is so popular with his voters and yet viewed with distaste and disdain by the establishment wing of both parties.

It’s about time that all of our leaders come to grips with the notion that the status quo was intolerable to most Americans. We have a president who, in his own inimitable style, is challenging that edifice.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., serves on the House Judiciary Committee. Follow him on Twitter: @RepAndyBiggsAZ