Putin used soccer metaphors and was handed a soccer ball that he tossed to Trump.
The red-and-white soccer ball tossed to President Donald Trump by Russia's Vladimir Putin is undergoing a routine security screening.
The US Secret Service says that's standard for all gifts to the president.
During a joint news conference after their summit this week in Finland, Putin used soccer metaphors and was handed a soccer ball that he tossed to Trump.
Russia hosted the 2018 World Cup. Trump said he'd give the ball to his 12-year-old son Barron, a soccer fan.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a Putin critic, tweeted after the exchange that he'd have the ball checked for listening devices and "never allow it in the White House." Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told a security conference he's sure the ball "has been looked at very carefully."
What happened at that one-on-one meeting between Trump and Putin with only interpreters present was not known, even to top officials and US lawmakers who said they had not been briefed.
Trump said he and Putin, who US intelligence agencies say directed interference in the 2016 US presidential election, had a friendly rapport.
"Look, the fact is we got along well," he told CNBC in an interview that was recorded on Thursday.
However, he suggested the two did not agree on everything.
"So I had a meeting that lasted for more than two hours. It wasn't always conciliatory in that meeting," Trump said, without elaborating. "We discussed lots of great things for both countries, frankly."
Trump stunned the world by siding with Putin in Helsinki over the findings of US intelligence agencies that Moscow had conducted a hacking and influence operation designed to sway the 2016 White House race in Trump's favor.
The president's comments prompted top intelligence officials in his administration, as well as fellow Republican leaders in Congress, to reaffirm the findings that Russia had tried to influence American voters.
In a stark example of the gulf between Trump and his own advisers on Russia, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was caught by surprise at the news that Trump had invited Putin to Washington.
Coats learned of Trump's decision at the same time as everyone else - when it was announced on Twitter by the White House while he was being interviewed at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.
(With PTI and Reuters inputs)
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