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Lavrov Mocks NBC Questions About Other Possible Trump-Putin Meetings: 'Maybe They Went to Toilet Together'

July 21, 2017

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov mocked an NBC reporter's questions Friday about other possible meetings between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit, joking they perhaps went to the toilet together at some point.

Reports emerged this week of a previously undisclosed conversation between Trump and Putin at a dinner on July 7 following their official bilateral talks that day, although the White House dismissed it as merely a social conversation.

However, Lavrov did not outright deny that Trump and Putin may have had other undisclosed talks in his discussion with NBC's Keir Simmons, but he used a derisive tone with Simmons nonetheless.

"We know about President Putin and President Trump meeting three times at the G-20," Simmons said. "They met obviously for the bilateral, they met at the dinner, and they met—"

"Well, maybe they went to [the] toilet together," Lavrov said, cutting him off. "That was a fourth time."

Simmons laughed briefly and pressed on with his question, adding that they also met when they were photographed shaking hands at a meet-and-greet.

"Did they meet other times?" Simmons asked. "In the hallways? Were there other occasions when they met?"

Lavrov sighed.

"When you're brought by your parents to kindergarten, do you mix with people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom?" Lavrov asked.

"It's the G-20, though, not kindergarten," Simmons said.

"There is also a room where they get together before ... They cannot arrive all at the same time on a bus," Lavrov said.

Trump and Putin's relationship has been watched closely due to the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Lavrov found himself at the center of a political firestorm in May when it was reported Trump revealed classified intelligence about the Islamic State to him in the Oval Office.