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| Putin's putain is the one on the left in this picture, 16 July 2018 |
“During today's meeting,
I addressed directly with President Putin the issue of Russian interference in
our elections.
I felt this was a
message best delivered in person. I spent a great deal of time talking about it
and President Putin may very well want to address it and very strongly, because
he feels very strongly about it and he has an interesting idea…..
And that was a well
fought, that was a well fought battle. We did a great job. And frankly, I'm
going to let the president speak to the second part of your question. But just
to say it one time again and I say it all the time, there was no collusion. I
didn't know the president.
There was nobody to
collude with. There was no collusion with the campaign and every time you hear
all of these you know 12 and 14 - stuff that has nothing to do and frankly they
admit - these are not people involved in the campaign.
But to the average
reader out there, they're saying well maybe that does. It doesn't. And even the
people involved, some perhaps told mis-stories or in one case the FBI said
there was no lie. There was no lie. Somebody else said there was. We ran a
brilliant campaign and that's why I'm president….
I do feel that we have
both made some mistakes. I think that the probe is a disaster for our country.
I think it’s kept us apart. It’s kept us separated. There was no collusion at
all. Everybody knows it. People are being brought out to the fore. So far that
I know, virtually, none of it related to the campaign. They will have to try
really hard to find something that did relate to the campaign. That was a clean
campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily and, frankly, we beat her. And I’m not
even saying from the standpoint — we won that race. It’s a shame there could be
a cloud over it. People know that. People understand it. The main thing — and
we discussed this also — is zero collusion. It has had a negative impact upon
the relationship of the two largest nuclear powers in the world. We have 90
percent of nuclear power between the two countries. It’s ridiculous. It’s
ridiculous what’s going on with the probe….
My people came to me,
Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it’s Russia. I have
President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any
reason why it would be….
I will tell you
that president Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” [my yellow highlighting]
Then the American pute politique returned home to a coast-to-coast uproar.....
The conservative
editorial page of The Wall Street Journal declared the news conference "a personal and
national embarrassment" for the President, asserting he'd "projected
weakness." Newt Gingrich, ordinarily a reliable voice of support, wrote on
Twitter the remarks were "the most serious mistake of his presidency."
Immediately after his
news conference, 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.
Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 17 July 2018:
Republican
Speaker in the US House of Representatives Paul
Ryan, Statement,
17 July 2018:
"There is no
question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to
undermine democracy here and around the world. That is not just the finding of
the American intelligence community but also the House Committee on
Intelligence. The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally. There
is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains
hostile to our most basic values and ideals. The United States must be focused
on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy."
Newspapers around the
world have reacted to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s performances
at the Helsinki summit, and are united in their assessment of which world
leader came out on top.
In the US, several
papers went in hard on Trump. The New York Daily News accused the president of
treason. Its front page featured an illustration of Trump holding hands with a
bare-chested Putin and shooting Uncle Sam in the head with a gun in the other hand.
The Washington Post’s
headline is: “Trump touts Putin’s ‘powerful’ denial”. The paper says Trump
handed the Russian president “an unalloyed diplomatic triumph” during
their summit as he refused to support the “collective conclusion” of the US
intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
The New York Post ran
with the headline: “See no evil”.
Where the lying American pute politique tried to say he had misspoken.....
"I thought that I made
myself very clear by having just reviewed the transcript. Now, I have to
say, I came back, and I said, “What is going on? What’s the big
deal?” So I got a transcript. I reviewed it. I actually went
out and reviewed a clip of an answer that I gave, and I realized that there is
need for some clarification.
It should have been
obvious — I thought it would be obvious — but I would like to clarify, just in
case it wasn’t. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word “would”
instead of “wouldn’t.” The sentence should have been: I don’t see any reason
why I wouldn’t — or why it wouldn’t be Russia. So just to repeat it, I
said the word “would” instead of “wouldn’t.” And the sentence should have
been — and I thought it would be maybe a little bit unclear on the transcript
or unclear on the actual video — 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.
I have, on numerous
occasions, noted our intelligence findings that Russians attempted to interfere
in our elections. Unlike previous administrations, my administration has
and will continue to move aggressively to repeal any efforts — and repel — we
will stop it, we will repel it — any efforts to interfere in our
elections.
We’re doing everything in our power to prevent Russian
interference in 2018." [my yellow highlighting]
