WASHINGTON—That stuff U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday about how he thinks Russia didn’t interfere in the 2016 presidential election? An accidental slip of the tongue, Trump claimed Tuesday.

What he really meant to say, he insisted against all evidence, was that he thinks Russia did interfere.

“In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” Trump said Tuesday at the White House. “The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double negative. So you can put that in, and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.”

Trump offered this implausible spin in an attempt to limit the political damage from the Monday remarks that have generated a national furor. But the forgotten-contraction defence was greeted with bafflement and amazement by Trump’s critics and by U.S. reporters who covered the Finland summit with Putin.

Share your thoughts

“I’m not laughing,” Michael Hayden, the former Central Intelligence Agency director and Air Force general, wrote on Twitter. “Oh, hell. YES I AM.”

The explanation was especially curious because Trump was not even able to get through the supposed clarification without again demonstrating that he did not believe what he had just said.

Apparently ad-libbing, he again made clear that he is doubtful of U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion on Russia — in the two sentences immediately following the one where he said he accepts their conclusion on Russia.

“I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there,” he said, appearing to add in the last two sentences himself after reading the first sentence from his text.

Trump’s oscillation between what his aides want him to say and what he evidently believes himself was reminiscent of the aftermath of his controversial comments about violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, at which a protester was murdered.

Trying to quell the outrage over his initial Charlottesville remarks, in which he blamed both white supremacists and protesters, he dutifully recited prepared words condemning the white supremacists. But he soon abandoned the pretense and returned to his initial argument that both sides were at fault.

Trump’s Monday remarks about Russia drew a chorus of condemnation from afar more than the usual suspects. Even the hosts of his favourite morning show, the reliably fawning Fox and Friends, were unanimously critical. But on Tuesday, many Republicans appeared eager to forget the whole thing.

“I’m just glad he clarified it,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, according to NBC News. “I can’t read his intentions or what he meant to say at the time, and suffice it to say that for me as a policymaker, what really matters is what we do moving forward.”

Democrats, though, issued a new round of scathing criticism. They called Trump’s claims obviously inaccurate.

“Today the media will be tested. Whether they describe accurately what they are seeing and hearing with their own eyes and ears, or report an obviously dishonest and distorted version, is the essential question,” Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said on Twitter.

Trump’s Tuesday claim that he had merely misspoken a single word did not explain his other remarks Monday in favour of Russia’s positions.

Trump had also said that he thought “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” He had held “both countries,” including a “foolish” United States, responsible for damaging the bilateral relationship. And he spent a significant portion of the news conference attacking the FBI and spreading conspiracy theories about the investigation into his campaign’s links to the Russian government. At no point in his comments did he come close to saying he thought Russia was indeed at fault.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

And this was not the first time he has taken Russia’s side on the question of interference. Trump has since 2016 questioned the conclusion that Russia was the perpetrator. At one presidential debate, he famously said, “I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?”

Read more:

Key members of Congress are reacting to President Donald Trump's performance at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (The Associated Press)

Trump sides with Putin over U.S. intelligence chiefs on Russian interference in U.S. election

Is the Kremlin trying yet again to derail a U.S. election? New Russian website uses increasingly sophisticated, targeted bots

Trump has already raised more than $88 million for 2020 re-election campaign

Read more about: