"So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki
You just aren't smart enough to understand what Donald Trump was doing with Vladimir Putin
CNN)Just hours removed from attempting to clean up his disastrous performance beside Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Wednesday morning to make a startling claim: Smart people recognized that the summit -- and the press conference that followed it — was actually a massive win for him (and the United States).
Trump tweeted. "Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!"
Let's break this down.
On the most basic level, Trump appears to be re-defending comments he made in the news conference with Putin that he spent Tuesday trying to get out from under. "I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place -- could be other people also," Trump said on Tuesday in an attempt to get beyond the chaos he created by saying that both sides deserved blame in Russian election interference in 2016 — even though Trump also seems to believe it's not entirely clear that Russia actually was the lone actor meddling in the last presidential campaign. (If you are confused by that, you are not alone. In the words of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski: "This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's."
Trump's tweet on Wednesday affirms the fact that he doesn't really think he said anything wrong with Putin. What Trump and his administration are trying to do is present the whole thing as one big mix-up -- when the President said "I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia meddling in the election, what he really meant to say was "I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be." Explained Trump: "In a key sentence in my remarks I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't.'"
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/18/politics/trump-putin-summit-helsinki/index.html
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