the confusing bends of Trump

By Our Washington Correspondent

The excuses are not Donald Trump's forte. He has been nurtured by his mentors – his father Fred, and McCarthy lawyer Roy Cohn – in the belief that they are just an admission of weakness. Since then, he keeps to it: never recognize a mistake, never retreat.

It is therefore necessary that the storm was powerful so that the American president made Tuesday a tactical retreat. In Helsinki, the day before, he had given more credit to Vladimir Putin's protests of innocence than to the substantiated accusations of his intelligence services about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. He was perfectly satisfied with his performance, confirms a White House collaborator, until he took the measure of almost universal reproaches by watching television on board Air Force One during the return flight. Even Fox News, who applauds it in all, considered "a necessary clarification". Even Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, who wrote two books in two years to make sense of Trumpism, 1 called on him to "immediately correct the gravest error of his presidency."

" To admit that his tongue has pitched in this sentence, the rest of his press conference should be ignored "

Associate Press correspondent Jonathan Lemire

Trump complied with this unpleasant exercise. his way. He formulated the least probable denial that can be found, so that his supporters are not fooled. "I wanted to say: I do not see any reason why it would NOT be Russia," said the president. "One wonders who thought of that, but it does not matter," said Wednesday Wall Street Journal in his editorial. "This excuse defies any credibility," said Jonathan Lemire, the Associated Press correspondent whose question caused the slippage. To admit that his tongue has pitched in this sentence, one should ignore the rest of his press conference "with the Russian president. Even giving him credit for rectifying the situation, "this statement was made 24 hours late and in the wrong place," said Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer

"Formal Duty"

. supporters as among his opponents, have taken this focus for cash. Because Donald Trump has read it ostensibly in front of the cameras with the mechanical tone of someone who accomplishes a formality, and by departing twice from the script prepared by his collaborators. First to exclaim: "There was no collusion at all!", A sentence he had added to the hand. Then to mitigate the denial just worded: "I accept the conclusion of our intelligence community that Russia's interference in the 2016 election has taken place. It could also be other people; lots of people all over the place. "For good measure, he had struck out a sentence from his pen to" bring anyone involved in court ", a promise he did not make.

"Trump has developed a method of apology composed of equal parts of retirement and reaffirmation," says Marc Fisher in Washington Post pointing out "the change of tone when he expresses his true feelings." According to him, we are witnessing the same "process" that occurred last summer during Charlottesville's racist incidents: "Insult, reluctant excuses, clear signal that he really believes what he said at the beginning, repetition." In fact, Tuesday's fix is ​​not intended to close the controversy, it only offers him the protection of having said one thing and its opposite. Now that he has fulfilled this "formal obligation", the White House leader can continue to tell his story: "So many people at the intelligence summit have loved my performance at the Helsinki press conference," he tweeted on Wednesday. And: "If the NATO meeting was a recognized triumph […] the meeting with Russia could prove to be, in the long run, an even greater success."

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The supporters of the president approve of it whatever he does and when they have doubts convince themselves that "he is harder in private" or that "he has a plan" or that he he secretly concocts a megadeal. But Republican officials seem less and less inclined to this credulity.

While the Wall Street Journal calls on the Congress to "put Putin – and Trump in control", the elected officials are considering adopting new sanctions against the Kremlin, or even putting Russia on the list of States sponsoring terrorism. Democrats also demand to hear all the participants in the Helsinki summit, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will make in the Senate next Wednesday.

(1) Understanding Trump 2017, and Trump's America 2018.