Rep. Will Hurd, a Republican from Texas, said President Trump’s remarks today that he misspoke during a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin raises questions about what he said at their one-on-one meeting.
He continued: “This is an indication that when it comes to two important countries like the United States and a global spoiler like Russia, language is important, and being precise is important.”
Hurd said Trump must be consistent in his support for the US intelligence community and his understanding that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
The President’s comments today that “other people” could have also interfered in the election were confusing, Hurd said.
“It’s creating confusion with our allies,” he said.
Hurd later added: “I don’t think he should be doing one-on-one meetings with heads of state because too much is at stake.”
President Trump just tweeted tonight that his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was “a great success.”
The President’s tweet comes hours after he sought to clarify remarks he made during a news conference with Putin on Monday.
Earlier today, Trump, facing bipartisan fury over his glowing remarks about Putin, said he had misspoken. Trump said that when he returned from the summit with Putin in Finland, he “realized there is some need for clarification” about his remarks on Russian interference in the 2016 US election.
“In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” the President said Tuesday. He explained he had reviewed a transcript and video of his remarks.
“The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’” he said. “Sort of a double negative.”
During Monday’s news conference, Trump said, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia that interfered in the election.
Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein briefed President Trump last Monday on the forthcoming indictment against 12 Russian intelligence officers, before Trump left on his European trip, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
Justice Department officials were mindful of Trump’s upcoming meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, and discussed the timing of the indictment with Trump, but no decisions were made at the meeting.
After consultations between Trump and top White House officials, the White House later told the Justice Department not to hold off on announcing the indictment, the sources explained. So Rosenstein made the announcement after the grand jury returned the indictment on Friday.
In announcing the indictment last week, Rosenstein explained why the President was told in advance about it.
“It was important for the President to know what information we’ve uncovered because he’s got to make very important decisions for the country, so he needs to understand what evidence we have of foreign election interference,” Rosenstein said.
President Trump, facing an onslaught of bipartisan fury over his glowing remarks about Vladimir Putin, said today he had misspoken during his news conference with the autocratic Russian leader.
Trump’s clarification came more than 24 hours after the news conference.
So why did it take so long to respond? An official said it’s the same story with so many things: He is surrounded by aides who don’t disagree with him — either they’re afraid to, he doesn’t want to hear it or they don’t see mistakes clearly. He had no one to tell him immediately after the press conference that he needed to clean up something, the official said.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said President Trump’s prepared remarks today sounded like he was “a hostage forced to read something.”
The California Democrat said Trump’s attempt to clarify his remarks in Helsinki were not credible.
“I don’t believe this at all. It is simply not credible that the President somehow misspoke,” Schiff said. “What the President said not only was consistent with what he said at the meeting but it is consistent with what he is saying all along. Indeed, this retraction is not only too little, too late, but too equivocal.”
As White House aides and a few outside advisers scrambled today to respond to the overwhelming criticism from the summit in Helsinki, President Trump concluded in a meeting that he wanted to say he misspoke.
Two officials said it was the President who led the crafting of his clarification. That’s how he wanted to characterize it.
It became clear that initial discussions of doing it on Twitter would not be enough and that he had to do something today. Trump was hearing from more people through phone calls and messages. He spoke to key lawmakers and outside confidants leading up to his afternoon remarks.
One driving factor was a fear of resignations in the intelligence community — possibly Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats or others — and a sense that it “looked unpatriotic.”
The President still believes the criticism is being blown way out of proportion, an official said, and he plans to try and turn the attacks on the press once again.
But his references to “no collision” and remarks that there “could be other people” were also viewed as another mistake, an official said.
“He is consumed with talk of no collusion,” an official said, saying he repeated it all day and “thinks it’s the answer to everything.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, is calling on President Trump’s interpreter, who attended his one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, to testify before Congress.
She isn’t the only Democratic lawmaker calling for questioning the translator. Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts had called for the testimony in a series of tweets criticizing Trump on Monday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said President Trump’s news conference in Helsinki helped Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “agenda.”
Speaking at a town hall on democracy at the University of Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia on Tuesday, Biden said Putin’s goal is to “break the liberal international order that was created after WWII — that have generated prosperity and peace at that time.”
He said Trump is “helping with this agenda.”
Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism coordinator, said President Trump’s behavior at Monday’s summit was reminiscent of someone who was acting like a “controlled asset” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Clarke said Trump is acting in a way that he thinks Putin wants him to behave.
Watch more:
President Trump moments ago said he misspoke during his Monday news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump was talking about interference in the 2016 election when he said, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” the Russians.
Now, Trump says he meant to say why it “wouldn’t be” Russia.
“In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” Trump said today. “The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.”
Watch the video from Monday:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected President Trump’s comments today.
Here’s Schumer’s full statement:
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, rejected President Trump’s statement today regarding his remarks at the summit.
Warner equated the behavior of the President today to his remarks in the aftermath of Charlottesville.
“My feeling is this has a strange resemblance to the President’s comments after he was so offensive to the disturbances in Charlottesville that he equated the Neo-nazis with the protesters,” he said.
Warner continued: “He then walked back those comments a couple of days later for about twelve hours before he got on another Fox TV show or tweeted again. So, I give these comments about twenty four hours before he once again slams the investigation, before he once again sided with authoritarians like Vladimir Putin.”
Top national security officials huddled at the White House on Tuesday to develop a response to the angry fallout from President Trump’s remarks in Helsinki, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser John Bolton all met with Trump in the Oval Office today to go over his remarks ahead of his appearance in the Cabinet room this afternoon. A few other staffers were in the room, including chief of staff John Kelly and senior adviser Stephen Miller.
There were multiple meetings in the West Wing throughout the day to discuss how the response should be handled. Not all of the meetings involved the President directly.
Top officials, including Bolton, were involved in crafting the remarks that Trump delivered from the Cabinet Room.
When President Trump was presented with a typewritten script to read before reporters on Tuesday, he made some of his own additions: Scrawled in black marker were the words “THERE WAS NO COLUSION” – with the final word missing an L.
As Trump read his statement, aides in the back of the room read along, following the President’s words on their own copies of his script.
Trump, speaking to members of Congress, said he had “full faith” in the US intelligence community and accepted their assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election.
During his remarks, the President also insisted that “there was no collusion.”
Here’s a snapshot of Trump’s script:
President Trump said he returned from Helsinki on Monday and “realized there is some need for clarification” about his remarks on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word would instead of wouldn’t,” Trump said. He explained he reviewed a transcript and video of his remarks.
“The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’” he said. “Sort of a double negative.”
“I think that probably clarifies things pretty good on itself,” Trump said.
On Monday, Trump said during his press conference “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia who interfered in the election.
President Donald Trump voiced support Tuesday for US intelligence agencies, a day after he refused to accept their findings on Russia’s election meddling over the denials of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and vowed to take action to prevent further interference.
Speaking with reporters at the White House and reading from several sheets of typewritten remarks, Trump reiterated that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia and that the country’s efforts had no impact on the final results.
“I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies” Trump said. “Always have.”
He added that he “felt very strongly that while Russia’s actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election… I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place.”
“Could be other people also,” he said. “There’s a lot of people out there.”
He also called his summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, a success.
Watch the moment:
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sought today to address concerns from European allies about President Trump’s remarks at yesterday’s summit in Helsinki.
McConnell, speaking from Capitol Hill, said the European Union are friends of the US, the Russians are not.
“Over the last few years, the annexation of Crimea, the invasion of eastern Ukraine, not to mention the indisputable evidence that they tried to impact the 2016 election,” he said. “So make no mistake about it, I would say to our friends in Europe, we understand the Russian threat.”
We’re standing by for President Trump, who is expected to make remarks on the Putin summit at the start of his meeting with Republican members of Congress.
We will probably never really know what happened at Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s private meeting.
But we do know what happened when the two men held a joint press conference on Monday. Journalists bluntly conveyed shock at what they had just witnessed.
That shock and concern continued to dominate the coverage a full 24 hours later. The White House stayed mostly silent and by midday on Tuesday, there was still no afternoon press briefing on the daily schedule.
Even some of the president’s biggest boosters on Fox News conceded that Trump had made a big mistake in Helsinki.
“I will say this to the President,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said Tuesday morning. “When Newt Gingrich, when General Jack Keane, when Matt Schlapp say the President fell short and made our intelligence apparatus look bad, I think it’s time to pay attention.”
Kilmeade claimed it was “easily correctable.”
That’s debatable. The tone of Monday and Tuesday’s news coverage suggested that there will be long memories of Monday’s press conference.
Immediately after his news conference alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Donald Trump’s mood was buoyant, people familiar with the matter said.
He walked off stage in Helsinki with little inkling his remarks would cause the firestorm they did, and was instead enthusiastic about what he felt was a successful summit.
By the time he’d returned to the White House just before 10 p.m. ET on Monday, however, his mood had soured.
Predictably, the President was upset when he saw negative coverage of the summit airing on television aboard Air Force One. It was clear he was getting little support, even from the usual places.
He vented to aides traveling with him, including new communications chief Bill Shine and policy aide Stephen Miller. First lady Melania Trump was also aboard and was involved in some of the discussions, but not all of them, the people familiar with the matter said.
