The White House has issued an explanation for why part of its official transcript omitted a key part of the joint press conference between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last week.
Both the transcript and the video posted online by the White House leave out what transpired when Reuters’ Jeff Mason asked Putin if he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election and whether he directed any of his officials to “help him do that?”
“Yes, I did. Yes, I did,” Putin replied at the joint press conference. “Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.”
The question was shown live and appears in video taped by news outlets like the Associated Press and PBS, according to the Atlantic.
After several outlets picked up the Atlantic’s reporting, a White House official told NBC News that the transcript of the joint press conference earlier this month was taken by a stenographer that was solely using audio that did not clearly represent the full question.
“The White House stenographer uses the audio from the White House audio to produce the transcript,” the official said. “The audio mixer at the site did not bring up the question mic level in time to catch the beginning of Jeff’s question because the translator was still speaking. This was by no mean malicious.”
We have an explanation from the White House, obtained by @PeterAlexander @nbcnews pic.twitter.com/Hq2DX4Crnq
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) July 25, 2018
As the White House says, the recordings of the exchange appears muddled because as the English-speaking translator for Putin was still translating Putin’s previous comments when Mason began to ask another question. Also, the microphone picked up Mason’s question halfway through, which made the second part of his question easier to hear.
A Washington Post piece by Philip Bump says claims that the White House may have intentionally buried the comments are unfounded. Bump also said that their original transcript of the press conference read the same way as the White House’s readout.
