Description of this Video
President Trump Statement At White House Day After Helsinki Summit, July 17, 2018
The day after the Helsinki Summit, Trump made a statement from the White House to change one word of what he said at the Summit. During this clip, Trump says he accepts the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the election, but then he immediately says that it “could be other people also, there’s a lot of people out there.” He goes on to say that at one point in the Summit, he said “would” when he should have said “wouldn’t”.
In a different part of the original video, Trump made two misleading claims. First, he said that his administration is doing everything it can to prevent interference in future elections. This is not entirely true. Currently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is blocking a House Bill that would strengthen state election systems. You can read about this in the Sludge article, “McConnell Blocks Election Security, Takes Checks From Voting Machine Lobbyists”.
Trump also said that the Obama Administration knew about attempts to interfere in the election months ahead of time, but that they buried it. Actually, the Obama Administration attempted a bipartisan statement condemning Russia for their attacks before the election, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell essentially blocked it by refusing to sign it. McConnell’s actions regarding Russia are reported in The Moscow Project article, “McConnell Shows He’s Got Trump’s Back on Russia”. These are more examples of deflection by Trump.
Original Video For This Clip
Headline: President Trump statement on Helsinki Summit (C-SPAN)