Would this time be different? Would Republicans really hold the president of their own party accountable for what he had done?
Standing alongside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, President Donald Trump cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails in an effort to influence the 2016 U.S. election. He did not offer criticism of Russia’s illegal activities during the 45-minute press conference. Instead, he blamed both America and Russia for the current sour state of affairs and trained his focus on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which he described as “a disaster for our country.”
When asked who he believed about election interference, U.S. intelligence agencies or Putin, Trump said, in part: “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
“My people came to me, [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia,” he said. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be. But I really do want to see the server. But I have confidence in both parties.”
Republican condemnations poured in.
“Today’s press conference in Helsinki,” Arizona senator John McCain said in a statement, “was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory. The damage inflicted by President Trump’s naïveté, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.” McCain concluded, “No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.”
Nebraska senator Ben Sasse said that Trump had given Putin a “propaganda win he desperately needs,” telling CBS News:
But Sasse and McCain are, of course, the usual suspects—two of the dwindling number of Republicans who are willing to speak out forcefully against the president when he’s wrong.
What made the reaction to Helsinki different was that even some of the president’s closest allies felt compelled to speak out. Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich tweeted: “President Trump must clarify his statements in Helsinki on our intelligence system and Putin. It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected—immediately.” Fox News host Neil Cavuto called Trump’s behavior “disgusting.” “It’s not a right or left thing to me, it’s just wrong,” Cavuto said. “A U.S. president on foreign soil talking to our biggest enemy or adversary or competitor . . . is essentially letting the guy get away with this.”
But back on Capitol Hill, Republican leadership and most of the president’s allies weren’t nearly that harsh. A small number defended his remarks—most prominently Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who pinned the intense pushback to the president’s press conference on “Trump derangement syndrome.”
Many Republicans contradicted Trump without explicitly condemning him. “U.S.-Russia relations remain at a historic low for one simple reason: Vladimir Putin is a committed adversary of the United States,” Arkansas senator Tom Cotton said in a statement that didn’t mention President Trump. “Until Russian behavior changes, our policy should not change.”
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell took a similar tack, disagreeing with the president on NATO, Putin, and the 2016 elections. “I’m not here to critique anyone else,” McConnell said at a press conference. House speaker Paul Ryan went a bit further than his Senate counterpart. “The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally,” he said in a statement noting that the House Intelligence Committee had concluded Russia interfered in 2016.
Both McConnell and Ryan raised the possibility of further sanctions against Russia. McConnell specifically mentioned a bill sponsored by Florida GOP senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, introduced earlier this year, that would trigger new Russia sanctions if Coats concludes that the Kremlin interfered in another federal election.
“In the end, we can present people with information. But you can’t force anyone to say what you want them to say, especially the president of the United States,” Rubio told Politico. “Our job is to pass laws and do things that are for the good of the country . . . and one of those things should be [imposing] strong deterrence measures with pre-positioned penalties should [Russian meddling] ever happen again.”
There has also been renewed interest in a bill introduced by Colorado senator Cory Gardner that would require the State Department to determine whether Russia should be designated a state sponsor of terror. “This fervor wasn’t around last week,” Gardner said, when asked how the president’s remarks are affecting the debate over new Russia legislation.
Whether or not Congress passes any further legislation, what many congressional Republicans seem to want most is to put the incident behind them as quickly as possible.
On Tuesday, July 17, Trump read a statement at the White House saying he “misspoke” the day before in Helsinki: He’d meant to say the word “wouldn’t” instead of “would.” “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double negative,” Trump said. “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” he said, before adding more uncertainty. “Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”
The spin was implausible. Trump had also said of Coats and Putin: “I have confidence in both parties,” adding that we couldn’t really know the truth “without finding out what happened to the [DNC] server.” But some Republicans appeared eager to believe him.
“The president admitted he made a mistake,” Iowa senator Chuck Grassley told The Weekly Standard. “Very few politicians do that.”
“We have to take him at his word, he’s the president of the United States,” said Alabama senator Richard Shelby. “We all make mistakes and we walk back things,” he added. “I’m glad he’s clarified what he said.”
Others said something along the lines of: Well, he’s trying.
“It was important that he clarified that he trusts the U.S. intelligence agencies,” said Ohio senator Rob Portman. “And he did that to your satisfaction?” asked one reporter. “Well, I’m glad he did that,” said Portman. “I wish that he had done that the day before, in front of President Putin and the public.”
“He attempted to clarify it, but ineffectively,” South Dakota senator John Thune told reporters. “I agree with Dan Coats and the intelligence community.”
Asked if he was happy with Trump’s clarification, Kansas senator Pat Roberts said, “I didn’t even read it.” When a HuffPost reporter told Roberts what Trump had said, Roberts replied, “I’m trying to get the farm bill done, I work on things where I can make a difference. … That’s not within my purview.”
On July 19, Arizona Republican Jeff Flake and Delaware Democrat Chris Coons tried to force a Senate vote on a (symbolic) nonbinding resolution affirming the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of 2016; calling for Senate hearings to learn more about the Helsinki summit; commending the Department of Justice for its investigation leading to the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents; and supporting the full implementation of Russia sanctions provided for by existing law. But Senate majority whip John Cornyn blocked the vote. “My concern with this resolution is that [it] is a purely symbolic act,” Cornyn objected, adding that committee work was needed “before we go on record as to a resolution like this.”
Democratic reactions to Helsinki have ranged from sensible calls to pass further sanctions to hysterical accusations of treason and absurd arguments that the only way Republicans can hold Trump accountable is to reject his well-qualified Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
In its effects, this episode wasn’t much different for congressional Republicans than other low moments of the Trump presidency. A handful of Republicans spoke out forcefully, but most were resigned to the notion there’s not much they can do about Trump. And why would anyone expect things to be different?
During the 2016 campaign, candidate Trump encouraged violence against disruptive but non-violent protesters; he launched a racist attack against a Mexican-American judge; he mocked American POWs and a Gold Star mother; he promoted conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination and Barack Obama’s birth certificate; he faced multiple accusations of sexual assault following the release of a 2005 video in which he bragged about groping women. Most congressional Republicans backed him despite all of that, as did enough voters to hand him the presidency.
In the 18 months since his inauguration, President Trump has, among other things, said there were some “very fine people” participating in a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Va., and blamed “many sides” for violence after a neo-Nazi killed a peaceful protester there; stood by a Senate candidate in Alabama who faced credible accusations of molesting a 14-year-old girl; praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un last month, saying Kim “loves his people” and they love him with “great fervor.”
Trump’s behavior in Helsinki may have been a uniquely low moment for the presidency, but it was also completely in character. It was Trump being Trump.
As most congressional Republicans see it, they faced a stark choice in 2016 and they’re trying to accomplish what good they can with Trump as the leader of their party. What more can really be expected of them, they think, in terms of holding the president accountable?
Arizona’s Flake, a staunch GOP Trump critic, has been urging his colleagues to speak out and tell the whole truth when Trump is wrong and to pass legislation if they believe his policies are wrong. Flake has also been pointing out that there’s nothing that requires Republicans to renominate Trump when the primaries kick off 18 months from now. “It would be a tough go in a Republican primary. The Republican party is the Trump party right now. But that’s not to say it will stay that way,” Flake said on Meet the Press in March. As Flake noted at the time, the reason he isn’t running for reelection in Arizona is because “I couldn’t be reelected in my party right now. Somebody who voices reservations about where the president is or criticizes his behavior . . . it’s tough to be reelected in the Republican party.”
It is unlikely Republicans could successfully replace Trump in 2020 (only once since 1884 has a primary challenger prevented an incumbent president from securing renomination, and that was in 1968 over an issue as consequential and divisive as the Vietnam war). But Flake’s point still stands: If Republicans are genuinely disturbed by Trump’s character and temperament, they could nominate any other Republican who likes conservative judges but wouldn’t side with an anti-American autocrat on foreign soil.
For Flake, Helsinki simply confirmed his view that Trump needs to face a GOP primary challenger. “Yes, I’ve said that consistently,” Flake told The Weekly Standard as he jumped into a Senate elevator. Asked if he’d thought any more about running himself, he chuckled a bit. “Somebody needs to,” he said.
The problem for Flake—or whoever that “somebody” might be—is that polls suggest the Helsinki summit did little to change Republican views of the president: A CBS News poll released on July 19 found that although only 32 percent of Americans overall approved of how Trump conducted himself at the Helsinki summit with Putin, 68 percent of Republicans approved of the president’s behavior.
