Alt. Fact of the Week
What happened when Trump met Putin in Helsinki? An absolute (and ongoing) triumph — of prevarication, equivocation and poor judgment
Our view:
perhaps they were just anticipating the subsequent rewrite of that episode that was to come.
The latest revision was on the CBS Evening News Wednesday when the president attempted to firm up his account of how he told Mr. Putin that the U.S. would no longer tolerate election interference. Instead of expressing uncertainty about whether that interference actually happened as Mr. Trump initially did in Helsinki or his more recent claim that that was a slip of the tongue or that the Russia is or isn’t currently interfering (Lord, it’s exhausting to recall all these flip-flops), he “let him know we can’t have this” and that “we’re not going to have it, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
If all these amendments to reality were not taxing enough, there was President Trump on his social media account complaining that the press just wasn’t smart enough to understand the great things that were accomplished at the summit. "So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki," he tweeted Wednesday. "Putin and I discussed many important subjects at our earlier meeting. We got along well which truly bothered many haters who wanted to see a boxing match. Big results will come!"
Oh, yes, about that. What exactly did Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin discuss behind closed doors? Or, to put it another way, how could anyone possibly believe the participants, so does it matter? Small wonder some Democrats in Congress want to have the U.S. translator testify. It’s clearly their best shot at getting an honest account. Meanwhile, there’s ample room for speculation — for example, about the case of Bill Browder, the American investor whom Mr. Putin wants dead because of the corruption he helped uncover in Moscow and the Russian oligarchs he’s inconvenienced, Mr. Putin among them. Did President Trump make some promise to rescind the 6-year-old Magnitsky Act? Might that be the whole purpose behind Russia’s election interference in the first place?
Such speculation would have seemed wildly unfair during any other presidency. Under Mr. Trump, it’s like the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” on steroids. Was he lying then or is he lying now or is he about to lie? Good luck sorting it out.