WASHINGTON — It was really just a mix-up, he insisted. Like confusing “affect” and “effect,” but for unprecedented global cyberaggression.

“I thought I made myself very clear,” President Trump said, alternately riffing and note-reading on Tuesday from his chair in the White House Cabinet Room. “I came back, and I said, ‘What is going on? What’s the big deal?’”

Well.

Mr. Trump had just returned from Finland, where he sided against his own intelligence agencies’ conclusions about Russian interference in the 2016 election during a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia,” Mr. Trump had said on Monday. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

And by that, Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, more than 24 hours later, he meant the exact opposite. “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’” Mr. Trump said. “Sort of a double negative.”