Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer said President Trump’s “half-hearted” and “ham-fisted” attempts to distance himself from controversial comments he during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin are ringing hollow.
“Yesterday, President Trump went through a ‘walk back,’” Mr. Schumer, New York Democrat, said Wednesday on the Senate Floor. “President Trump’s walk back performance was pathetic, weak, insincere and thoroughly unconvincing.”
Mr. Schumer said Mr. Trump undermined his attempts to clarify remarks he made in Helsinki — including his refusal to support the U.S. intelligence community’s findings that Russian had interfered in the 2016 presidential election — when he tweeted Wednesday that the meeting was a “great success” and the criticism faced was another example of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“The only reason there was a walk back is the president was forced by pressure from many of my Republican friends here, from his allies in the media and his own White House house staff, They all pressured him to give that temporary walk back,” Mr. Schumer said....
“But it is clear from today’s tweets that he doesn’t mean it, he doesn’t believe it and frankly neither does anybody else,” he said. “It is clear that he still believes President Putin over the consensus of American intelligence community and that puts American security at risk.”