Trump's fallout on Putin: Inside the tumultuous stretch of the White House

This portrait of a tumultuous week in the White House, concerned with Trump 's approach to Russia, is the result of interviews with a dozen officials and Trump confidants, many of whom spoke under the guise of anonymity. ] The troubles started on Monday in Helsinki, although the magnitude has not been there for Trump for several hours. He left behind the scenes after his 46-minute press conference with Putin – in which he seemed to accept Putin's denial of Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential campaign over the findings of US intelligence agencies – delighted of his own performance. The President felt that he had been forceful, impressed by two friendly interviews that he made with Fox News Channel personalities before boarding Air Force One for return from the northern capital

But about an hour after the robbery, Trump's mood darkened and squeaky reality took hold of almost universal TV coverage and the assistants began to read pages of printed statements of his Republican colleagues lambasting the President. Trump called his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to coerce him, and he also snuggled up with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in his cabin at the ################################################################## 39, before the plane to develop a strategy. On Putin's side about his own intelligence community, Trump and his associates first agreed on sending by the president a tweet that repeated: "J & # 39; have great confidence in MY intelligent people. "

But that did not silence the uproar. I knew that they had a big problem.

Trump himself was baffled. He drew closer to his impressions of Putin closely – loud, clever and cunning, according to Trump's assessment – and told his associates that he regarded the Russian as a formidable opponent with whom he enjoys the interactions. He was also furious about the negative media coverage of a summit that he said had been an obvious success. And he was complaining to some of what he saw as an underlying angle of the electoral controversy: that the Democratic National Committee authorized the hacking of its server.

Trump complained about the difficult question asked by Jonathan Lemire, Associated Press He asks why Trump reportedly denounced Russia's electoral interference with Putin's face, "with the whole world in the eye", and the President denied it. Assists tried to explain to Trump that almost any journalist would have asked such a sharp question at that time.

But, as an official of the White House said, "If you do not like the answer, you do not like the question"

The President did not like the question. was still not satisfied. Later in the week, he told CNBC: "Some of those fools of the media have said, 'Why did not you stay there, look it in the face, walk to him and start to shout at him? I said, "Are these people crazy? I want to close a deal. "

Tuesday morning, Trump told his friends that he did not understand the problem. But his advisers understood. A coterie of them – including Vice President Mike Pence, Chief of Staff John Kelly, Councilor Kellyanne Conway, Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine, Senior Advisor Stephen Miller, Bolton and Sanders – met with Trump to write a statement this afternoon seeking to clarify his remarks from Helsinki.

Shine, new in his work, also wanted to change the narrative, and after a career as a Fox News executive, he focused on imaging – eager for Trump to supplant the image of himself admiring standing next to Putin

Trump personally reviewed the transcript first and then the video of his press conference and found the explanation "double negative" that he finally provided – that when he said in Helsinki that he saw no reason the electoral pirates "would be" Russian, he meant saying "would not do it".

Initially, the president feared that his statement would be seen as a step back or not harden criticism – the kind of concessions he's loath to do. But senior advisers have reassured him that he really meant that he did not see why the Russian would not be to blame, he would simply offer a clarification, not spelunking.

The judgment of Clouding Trump all week was his apparent inability to distinguish between Russian "interference", of which there is overwhelming evidence, and Russian "complicity" with the Trump campaign, on which the special advocate Robert Mueller is still investigating, and the president insists that it did not happen

. The biggest problem is that he believes that the interference is synonymous with collusion, "said Senator Lindsey Graham. "No one else believes him, I think he's very sensitive to going there because he thinks it reduces his legitimacy."

By midweek Wednesday, some in Trump's orbit thought it would come out relatively unscathed. I think his obituary has been written many times and needs to be rewritten, "said former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. "He broke the mold when it came to … what would have been a dramatic coup for any other politician."

But there were showstoppers yet to come. At Wednesday's ministerial meeting focused on the economy, as staff members opened the door to reporters, Cecilia Vega, of ABC News, asked Trump when he continued to believe that the Russians were targeting the United States

. pronounced a word: "No.

Sanders and other aides in the Cabinet Room did not consider the President's comment an answer to Vega's question. But news organizations, including the Washington Post, have alerted news that Trump has once again undermined its intelligence officials, who have warned of active Russian threats. And the White House has had a new crisis in the hands.

Sanders rushed to join the president, who had already left for the Andrews Common Base to greet the family of a secret service agent whose remains were returning from Scotland. The officer died after suffering a stroke in Scotland while he was part of the president's support team. The press secretary delayed her afternoon briefing until she conferred with Trump, and relayed the president's response.

"I spoke to the president," Sanders told reporters. "He did not answer that question, he said no, he did not answer questions."

But there was another problem for the administration. Sanders was questioned about Putin's proposal that Mueller travels to Moscow to interrogate Russian hacking suspects in exchange for Russians interrogating US officials, including former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. Trump had called Putin 's proposal "interesting idea" and Sanders did not rule out – even though the State Department had described it as "bad". "absurd".

"The President will work with his team and we will let you know if there is an announcement on this front," said Sanders, who took care not to declare the lectern policy before discuss with Trump.

The episode revealed a naivety on the part of the president. The White House aides worried that Trump does not recognize the massive diplomatic and security implications of the Americans' move to an autocratic regime that jails and kills dissidents. At a meeting on Thursday morning, Trump's national security team saw that the president was focusing mainly on the send-Mueller-to-Moscow portion. of the proposal – not on a cross-examination of a former US ambassador. Later, after discussing the matter with Trump, Sanders delivered the president's final verdict, saying that he disagreed with Putin's proposal, which she said had been "In all sincerity".

Meanwhile, at a staff meeting, Conway signaled to the team that Coats would be interviewed by NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell, before a rally of opinion leaders and supporters. Media elites in Aspen. Conway warned her colleagues that Coats could make the headlines – and she was prescient.

The White House had little visibility on what Coats could say. The Intelligence Director's team had refused at least one offer from a senior White House official to help him prepare for the long-planned interview, pointing out that he knew of Mitchell for years and that he was comfortable talking to him.

frank in the interview, sometimes questioning Trump's judgment – like the president's decision to meet Putin for two hours without any assistant beyond the interpreters – and revealing the disagreement between the president and the community intelligence. The show was all the more surprising since Coats is nicknamed "Marcel Marceau", after the French mime, in the circles of national security because the director so rarely opines with Mitchell.

Coats' comments were poorly received in Wing West, where Trump's advisers saw him play in front of his elite audience in Aspen at the expense of the president. A senior White House official said, "Coats has become a thug" and reminded another colleague suggesting, "He could just as easily have said that he was DNI for Obama."

A US official rebuffed the critic, claiming "not in Coats' DNA" to seek the spotlight and that he would never try to embarrass the president.

But the incongruous split screen was striking. While the White House was at an all time low, struggling to come out of a seemingly endless week-long walk, the Aspen crowd seemed to enjoy a high-altitude party.

When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discouraged foreign interference in American politics, Trump's angry target was greeted by a hero.

Hundreds of people huddled in a roasting tent stood up when Rosenstein came in, and many stayed after his speech, hoping for coveted recollection: A selfie with the prosecutor overseeing the Mueller probe.