Trump waited 27 hours, sent five tweets and sat for two television interviews after his initial comments in Helsinki before claiming he'd used a confusing "double negative" and meant "would" instead of "wouldn't" in a key sentence at his press conference about who was responsible for election meddling. White House invites Putin to Washington for fall meeting
"The sentence should have been: I don't see any reason why I wouldn't -- or why it wouldn't be Russia," the president said Tuesday before a meeting with Republican members of Congress.
The next day brought a fresh challenge. Trump appeared to answer "no" to a reporter's question asking whether Russia was still targeting the U.S. Hours later, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders emerged to say Trump had merely tried to put a stop to the questioning by saying "no," although he continued discussing Russia after that.
And Sanders created a fresh headache for the administration when she said the White House was still reviewing a proposal from Putin to allow access by Russian law enforcement officials to Americans whom the Kremlin accuses of unspecified crimes in return for U.S. access to interrogations of Russian agents indicted for their alleged roles in interfering in the 2016 election. The State Department, by contrast, rejected the proposal which Trump days earlier had called an "incredible offer as "absurd."
Many in the White House did not immediately see fault in Sanders' comments that the West Wing was merely considering the Kremlin offer, but it provided fresh tinder for the bipartisan firestorm.
As each White House effort to clean up the situation failed to stem the growing bipartisan backlash, Trump's mood worsened, according to confidants. He groused about his staff for not better managing the fallout. He was angry at the two American reporters, including one from The Associated Press, who asked questions at the Helsinki news conference. And he seethed at the lack of support he believed he received from congressional Republicans.
Also a target of the president's ire was Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats , who issued a rare statement rebutting the president's Monday comments. But it was Coats' televised interview Thursday at a security conference in Aspen, Colo., that set off the president anew, as the intelligence director questioned the wisdom of the Putin meeting and said he had hoped Trump wouldn't meet alone with the Russian leader.
It all left White House staffers in a fresh state of resignation about their jobs.
"I saw the screaming headline on cable TV that there is malaise in the West Wing and I look forward to meeting her," quipped presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway. "I don't see that."