Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

During a July 16 press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, and later in interviews, President Donald Trump repeatedly denied that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump later read a scripted statement walking back his original denials, only to later add that the Russians are not interfering in the upcoming elections (they are).

Some in right-wing media were ready to clean up the president’s embarrassing disaster of a press conference by suggesting that critics denouncing his obvious ineptitude and suspicious attachment to Putin are merely cheering for “war with Russia.”