Trump’s disavowal a big stretch

News

July 18, 2018 - 11:00 PM

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.

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