Journalist bravely confronts Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin

AS THE world was left retrieving their jaws from the floor following US President Donald Trump’s extraordinarily spineless display alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, an unlikely hero was born.

Mr Trump spent much of his European tour this month flexing his muscles and throwing around threats — publicly chastising the European Union, blasting Germany, and attacking British prime minister Theresa May’s leadership style — but when it came to his much-anticipated summit with Russian dictator Mr Putin, he cowered in the corner.

At a time when the world really needed Mr Trump, as the leader of the free world, to stand up to his controversial counterpart, he couldn’t say one critical word about Russia on any of the issues that have brought relations between Washington and Moscow to a post-Cold War low.

#TreasonSummit is now trending on Twitter, with people crying that the meeting between the two world leaders was “the most astonishing display of weakness and submission” from an American President ever.

But luckily for us, we had Jonathan Lemire. The White House correspondent for the Associated Press became the hero we all needed when he boldly went where Mr Trump would not.

At the joint press conference following Mr Trump and Mr Putin’s two-hour closed-door meeting in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, Lemire bluntly asked the US president whether he believed the Russian dictator over his own US intelligence officials.

The entire US intelligence community has concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 election but Mr Putin has vehemently denied the allegations.

“Who do you believe?” Lemire asked Mr Trump.

“Would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016, and would you warn him to never do it again?”

Mr Trump cowardly dodged the question without denouncing Russia, or even hinting that there was any misconduct.

“I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be [Russia],” he replied, before quickly trying to defer to the Democratic National Committee’s server that was hacked.

“What happened to Hillary Clinton’s emails?” he said, adding that Mr Putin was “extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”

But Lemire didn’t stop there. The brave journalist then asked Mr Putin — who is known for silencing the media and suppressing free speech — if he had any compromising material on Donald Trump.

Mr Putin was not amused.

“It’s hard to imagine greater nonsense,” he scoffed. “Please get this rubbish out of your heads.”

But while neither president seemed to appreciate Lemire, commentators on social media erupted with praise and admiration for the reporter, calling him “incredibly brave”, a “hero” and “fearless”.