Nixon sometimes met with leaders without his own translator

President Donald Trump’s private discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit is highly unusual but not completely without precedent, a foreign policy expert said on MSNBC.

Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group consulting firm, told Rachel Maddow on July 18, 2017, that Trump’s side meeting with Putin at a dinner with heads of state was definitely unusual.

Trump met with Putin on July 7 for an official meeting during the summit. But then he sat next to Putin at the dinner later that day with only a Russian translator present and no other American officials. (Trump told the New York Times they "talked about Russian adoption.")

But Richard Nixon was also known to hold meetings with foreign dignitaries without an American interpreter, Bremmer said.

"Apparently, President Nixon used to do it because he felt, didn't really trust the State Department, at that point, providing the translators and didn't want information getting out, leaking, that he would want to keep private," he said.