Will Helsinki change the course of Trump's presidency?

Donald Trump had a tumultuous week House s & Is struggling to handle the political fallout from his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But did his performance cause lasting damage to his presidency?

Stop me if you've ever heard this one.

Donald Trump says or does something controversial. Experts and politicians across the political spectrum offer various nuances of condemnation or disapproval.

The White House is making efforts to address concerns and offer explanations. Mr. Trump resumes and attacks the "false media" and an establishment that wants to destroy his presidency.

Polls reveal that nothing has changed

. in the days following Mr. Trump's first travel ban led to chaos at American airports. And after firing the director of the FBI, James Comey. And after expressing sympathy for the white nationalists who clashed with protesters at a rally in Charlottesville.

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This was a hallmark of his presidential campaign, though it was the spread of the Access Hollywood gang during which he boasted of making unwanted badual advances on women, arguing with a Hispanic beauty contest and the Muslim parents of an American soldier killed or questioning the patriotism of a former prisoner of war The outcry sparked by Mr. Trump's press conference at Helsinki, during which he declared that the United States and Russia were responsible for the tensions between the two countries and questioned the claims of his administration that Russia would have mingled with the 2016 US elections. [19659005] More about Anthony:

Liberal Democrats and commentators have thrown themselves. The Never-Trumpers on the right have been quick in their convictions. Republican officials who have been critics again and again were back on the lookout.

"The dam is broken," Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee said. "What we must understand, is how we do it."

Other Politicians, Like the President Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have issued but not mentioning the President's name.

Even Trump's dependable followers were largely silent – or unhappy. For example, the former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, called Helsinki "the worst mistake of his presidency and must be corrected immediately".

And that's what Mr. Trump did Tuesday reading a written remark in which he "clarified" that he misquoted himself in Helsinki and gave several television interviews where he claimed to believe his intelligence team's findings that Russia was – and is – engaged in ongoing attempts to disrupt US democracy. Mr Trump insisted that the Helsinki summit had been a "big hit", evident to those at "higher levels of intelligence" and only questioned by the US media. that he still called "the enemy of the people". Such an attack on the free press was once a headline event, but now – at least the fourth time the president has spoken the phrase – there is barely a shrug of the shoulders.

It was always believed that this time, however, might be different. That Mr. Trump had finally gone too far for American voters to get into the stomach.

"If you still predict that it is not the straw that will break the back of the camel, you will almost always be right but you will miss The straw breaks the back of the camel," political badyst Nate Silver tweeted .

But it's usually something bigger than straw that breaks the camel's back.And most camels die from causes other than the broken back – or die long after that their straw days were over.In the middle of the week, Republicans in Congress were coming in. The broken dam of Mr. Corker had apparently been glued together, and the Tennessee senator said that Mr. Trump were "a step forward" and he was happy that they happened.

Then polls after Helsinki began to fall, they showed that if the public was not not happy with the performance of the president, his base In a HuffPost / YouGov survey, 83 percent of Trump's voters approved Trump's management of the summit, compared with 40 percent of the public. A CBS poll found that if only 32 percent of Americans approved, that number jumped to 68 percent among Republicans. Meanwhile, 61% of the public was concerned about Russia's interference in the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections, but that number dropped to 38% among Republicans.

In fact, McKay Coppins of the Atlantic The America Great Again coalition (MAGA) seems at peace with the possibility of Russian interference in 2016 because it has benefited the cause of their man.

"Skimming #MAGA Twitter makes it easy to see the contours of the pro-Russian argument," writes Coppins. "America interferes in the elections of other countries, so it can not be so bad, exposing the hacked emails of the Democrats was a victory for transparency, keeping Clinton in power was so urgent and important that & ### 39, he justified foreign intervention. "

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As Trump-Russia Week drew to a close, the President again stunned he had already invited Mr. Putin to visit the United States in the fall. Coming on the heels of a week of bad press, this seemed like a risky maneuver – and yet it was a clbadic Trump.

Just like the announcement of a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un earlier this year, he even surprised those in his administration. But he managed to change the story, sparking speculation about what could happen next – not chewing more on the bones of Monday's summit.

What better way for Mr. Trump to show that he really believes that Helsinki was a "big hit", as he tweeted it earlier this week, than to start planning his sequel?