Is there anything with a shorter shelf life than the official talking points of the Trump White House? For Donald Trump, it’s the script to go off script, and any statement he makes today will be altered, contradicted, or undone tomorrow.
Consider Trump’s rhetoric coming out of his July 16 summit in Helsinki with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Asked at their joint press conference about the discrepancy between the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the American election in 2016 and Putin’s denials of any such interference, Trump repeated a version of what he’s said before: that Putin’s statements are good enough for him. “My people came to me, [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats, came to me and some others. They said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Not long after the press conference, as Air Force One was flying back across the Atlantic, Republican offices on Capitol Hill received some White House talking points on the summit. The list highlighted just one line about Russian election interference from Trump’s remarks and offered no indication of his position on the question: “During today’s meeting, I addressed directly with President Putin the issue of Russian interference in our elections. I felt this was a message best delivered in person. Spent a great deal of time talking about it.”
Three hours later, shortly before Trump landed in the United States but after the outrage over his performance had metastasized, the White House sent GOP lawmakers a new set of talking points. “President Trump said in Helsinki that he had ‘great confidence’ in his intelligence agencies,” read the new document. “For over a year and half, the President has repeatedly said he believes the intelligence agencies when they said Russia interfered in American elections.” The email went on to cite four different instances in which Trump acknowledged Russian interference or affirmed his intelligence agencies’ assessments. But what the White House left out is more illuminating than what it put in.
The first instance the memo pointed to came before the inauguration. “I think it was Russia,” Trump said at a January 11, 2017, press conference. It is what Trump said immediately after that the White House failed to include: “But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.”
Next was a July 6, 2017, press conference in Warsaw. “I think it was Russia,” Trump acknowledged. But again, he continued where the talking points did not: “And I think it could have been other people and other countries. Could have been a lot of people interfering.” At that press conference, in fact, Trump repeated two more times that while he thought Russia had interfered, it could also have been “other people” and “other countries.”
The third instance the White House cited came in remarks Trump made on November 11, 2017, at a press conference in Vietnam. “I’m with our Agencies,” the White House quoted the president saying, and that is what he said. But before aligning himself with the intelligence agencies, Trump felt obligated to note that Putin “feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election.” After that, Trump more than once said he was with his intelligence agencies before adding again, “I believe that President Putin really feels—and he feels strongly—that he did not meddle in our election. What he believes is what he believes.” All context was left out of the quotation in the talking points.
Finally, the White House memo pointed to Trump’s saying on March 6 of this year that “certainly there was meddling.” But yet again, his full remarks were more equivocal: “The Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever, but certainly there was meddling, and probably there was meddling from other countries and maybe other individuals.”
The White House talking points were trying to suggest that Trump’s words in Helsinki were an aberration rather than fully in keeping with his consistent contention that the Russians may not have been behind the interference. The message was sent forth, and friendly media outlets dutifully repeated them. (Fox & Friends, inconveniently, played the full clips.)
Still, the thrust of the White House memo suggested where Trump himself would go the following day. During a brief press availability before a meeting with members of Congress at the White House on July 17, Trump read from a written statement in an attempt to “clarify” his view.
Putting the absurdity of this statement aside, what is notable is that even here Trump couldn’t help veering off script—and away from the entire point of his White House’s latest talking points. The president allowed that while he “accept[ed] our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” it “could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.”
What has been lost in reaction to Trump’s dismal performance in Helsinki is that what he said standing next to Putin is what he has said all along. No amount of message-massaging by the White House communications team seems able to keep the president on script—or, more accurately, to get Trump off the script he’s been reading from ever since he took office.
