If we accept the premise that President Trump said “would” when he meant to say “wouldn’t” during Monday’s joint press conference in Helsinki, problems with his performance remain.
This should go without saying, but for the leader of the free world, precise and accurate speech is meaningful. That’s especially true in risky public appearances with Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s own admission that he misspoke in a “key sentence” is embarrassing no matter how you slice it. And even if we charitably assume he meant “wouldn’t,” that would hardly constitute adequate force with which to confront Putin as the world watches.
[Trump dismisses Russian election meddling, doesn’t see ‘any reason’ for it]
Set the “would” or “wouldn’t” debate aside. As we stated in our editorial after the meeting, “Trump also showed weakness in refusing to mention onstage with Putin Russia’s extraordinary and illegal military aggression of the past decade,” and even accepted blame on half of his own country, musing, “I think we have both made some mistakes.” He ranted about election results, and Peter Strzok, and the DNC server, even complimenting (his word) Putin on being a “good competitor.”
To quote again from our editorial, “A strong and prudent president would have crafted a condemnation both forceful and diplomatic about Russia’s election meddling, military aggression, and abuses of human rights and civil liberties. Trump spoke up on none of these things, thus giving Putin another win.” That’s an irreversible error that can’t be chalked up to a botched contraction.
Trump doesn’t want to listen to the policy prescriptions of media and government elites (and for good reason), but he should ultimately accept that the American president must do better when standing aside our foes, and recalibrate accordingly.
