It turns out the maelstrom that President Donald Trump created when he sided with Russia over his own intelligence community was simply a matter of a missing contraction. Or so the president would have Americans and the rest of the world believe. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Only a day earlier, Trump shocked and horrified America and its Western allies by appearing to take at face value Russian President Vladimir Putin’s smirky denial of any involvement in meddling with the 2016 U.S. election cycle. Trump essentially told the world that Putin’s disclaimer outweighed the American intelligence community’s abundant evidence of the Kremlin’s interference in the campaign.
That’s what Trump said Monday.
On Tuesday, though, he delivered a severe case of whiplash.
Speaking at the White House before a meeting with Republican members of Congress, Trump said he had reviewed the transcript of his news conference in Helsinki with Putin at his side, and realized he misstated what he meant.
To briefly review, here’s what Trump actually said on Monday: “They think it’s Russia,” he told reporters in Helsinki, referring to American intelligence officials. “I have President Putin — he just said it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.” In another moment at the news conference, he called Putin’s denial “strong and powerful.”
Tumult followed. Leaders of Trump’s own Republican Party denounced his embrace of Putin over America’s intelligence community, and his refusal to acknowledge the incontrovertible evidence that Russia indeed had interfered in the presidential campaign. That evidence was bolstered by the Justice Department’s indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence agents for their alleged involvement in the meddling effort. House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, had to remind Trump that Russia “is not our ally” and “remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals.”
On Tuesday came a mind-boggling flip-flop. Trump said he realized “there’s need for some clarification.”
“I said ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t.’ “ In other words, Trump now was claiming that what he meant to say in Helsinki was, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.” Trump also said he accepted “our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian meddling in the 2016 election took place.”
Hmm. Can we believe him, particularly after the fawning admiration he has shown for Putin — before and during the Helsinki meetup? If Trump truly believed that his intelligence officials were on the mark in their conclusions about Russian meddling, then why didn’t he read Putin the riot act? Why didn’t he make it clear that the ex-KGB agent should be held accountable for his government’s actions?
We’ll see whether this sorry episode has lasting repercussions for American diplomacy.
For most world leaders, a blunder and walk-back of this magnitude would deal a crushing blow to their credibility.
But that may not happen here: Trump and truthfulness are already estranged.
— Chicago Tribune