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BRIDGEWATER, N.J. – Faced with the condemnation of allies and enemies on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump was outnumbered, even in the Oval Office. The main aides came together to convince the president to publish a rare return of comments that he had made raising doubts about the Russian secret service's findings during Russian electoral interference while it was stood with Vladimir Putin
. John Bolton and Chief of Staff John Kelly united in the West Wing on Tuesday to badert that the Commander-in-Chief had some cleaning to do. They brought with them words of alarm from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as from a host of congressional leaders and supporters of the President for whom the Public praise from Trump to Trump was too far away. Even for Trump, a leader who is increasingly relying on the constraints and advice of badistants, the "against-the-world" position has proved untenable. Trump would like to do things his way, avoiding advice and precedents like no president before, but he never likes to be alone.
Leaving the scene with Putin after his joint press conference in Helsinki, Trump was riding high after his second summit. accusatory leader in as many months. The highly choreographed business had been sought by the US chief as a means of strengthening his credibility abroad and his favoritism at home, and he believed that the latter had accomplished the task
. Monday night, Trump's mood darkens.
He told the confidants in the days that followed that he was satisfied with the conduct of his summit with Putin, believing he had taken the measure of man and opened the door to business.
On the long flight back to Washington, the president began calling allies and badistants and began making fun of negative media coverage. , even from Fox News, generally friendly, according to five outside allies and Republicans close to the White House who are not allowed to speak publicly about private conversations.
The critics he received were stifled – Trump seldom He wanted to lead the confrontation – but it was a foretaste of what was awaiting him on his return to Washington, where loyal allies such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich voted
. At home, the parade of critical statements had become a scramble, leaving Trump as isolated as he had been to the White House since last year's controversy over white supremacy protesters in Charlottesville. Some in the president's circle saw parallels in the response to this incident, when the president rebuffed his critical comments from "both sides" for protests in the city of Virginia, to return later to his original position – that the White supremacists and their
Trump waited 27 hours, sent five tweets and sat for two television interviews after his first comments in Helsinki before claiming that he had used a confused "double negative" and meant "instead of" would not be "in a key phrase at his press conference about who was responsible for the electoral interference."
"The sentence should have been: I do not see why I would not do it – or why it would not be Russia," the president said on Tuesday before a meeting with Republican members of Congress.
The next day brought a new challenge. Trump seemed to answer "no" to a reporter's question asking if Russia was still targeting US hours later, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders emerged to say that Trump had simply tried to end the issues in saying "no". Sanders created a new headache for the administration when she said that the White House was still considering a Putin proposal to allow access by Russian law enforcement to Americans that the Kremlin accuses unspecified crimes in exchange for US access to interrogations of Russian agents charged for their alleged roles in interfering in the 2016 elections. The State Department , on the other hand, rejected the proposal – which Trump days ago had described as "incredible offer – as" absurd ".
Many people in the White House did not see the error in Sanders' comments. Considering the Kremlin offer, but he provided the tinder fee for the bipartisan storm.
As every White House effort to clean up the situation has failed to stem the growing bipartisan reaction, Trump's mood has worsened, according to confidants. He scolded his staff for not managing the fallout better. He was angry at the two American journalists, including one from the Associated Press, who asked questions at the press conference in Helsinki. And he felt the lack of support that he thought he had received from congressional Republicans.
National Intelligence Director Dan Coats was also the target of angry President, who issued a rare statement refuting the president's comments on Monday. But that's the Coats TV interview on Thursday at a security conference in Aspen, Colorado, which challenged the president, while the director of intelligence questioned the wisdom of Putin's meeting.
"I saw the White House staff in a new state of resignation about their work.
"I saw the screaming title on cable television that there is discomfort in the West Wing and I can not wait to meet it. Kellyanne Conway, presidential advisor, joked. "I do not see that."
–
Lemire reports from New York. Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this Washington report.
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