Summit fever: Trump reaches for big moment with Putin

Helsinki: Though President Donald Trump has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin twice before, he is eager to recreate in Finland the heady experience that he had last month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

And that means a summit that becomes a mass media event complete with powerful presidential images.

Trump is ever the showman and insistent on establishing closer ties to Moscow. So he overruled his advisers and demanded the rituals and pageantry of a formal summit.

The president is drawing on his experiences as a marketer and salesman, which leave him convinced that his mastery of powerful images has been essential to his stunning political rise.