United States President Donald Trump has asked his administration to formally invite his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to visit America at the end of this year.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced on Friday that Trump had asked his National Security Adviser John Bolton to invite Putin to Washington in the fall and that discussions were already under way. Trump has agreed to continue an ongoing working-level dialogue between the two security council staffs, she said.

The announcement comes on the heels of bipartisan criticism of Trump’s statements after the two leaders met in Helsinki on Monday. After the meeting, the US president had declared that he believed Putin’s claims that Russia had not interfered in the US presidential election. The remarks put him at odds with US intelligence over claims of Russian interference in 2016 election. But a day later, Trump said he misspoke during the summit. The White House on Wednesday denied that President Trump said Russia was no longer a threat to the United States.

Trump’s comments in support of arch-rival Russia were condemned by both Democrats and Republicans.

However, the US president seemed unfazed by the criticism. Instead, he called the summit a “great success” and said he was looking forward to the second meeting.

“The summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media,” Trump wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace, North Korea and more. There are many answers, some easy and some hard, to these problems...but they can ALL be solved!”

Russia has not yet spoken about any second meeting with the American president.