During President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press conference in Helsinki, the U.S. president was asked to publicly warn Putin to never intervene in a U.S. election again. Trump declined to do so. Instead, he went on and on about FBI servers and brought up, again, the subject of Hillary Clinton’s emails. In failing to call out Putin or even acknowledge the well-established fact of election interference, Trump undermined American democracy on the world stage.

Although Trump might be convinced by Putin’s smooth words, it is no secret that Putin tried to meddle in the American elections. Indeed, in January 2017, U.S. intelligence had already concluded that Russia tried to influence elections.