US President Donald Trump has defended his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, amid a backlash over his performance.
On Twitter, Mr Trump condemned “haters” who did not want him getting along with Mr Putin, saying they suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.
Mr Trump said he misspoke at the press conference with Mr Putin.
He had sided with Mr Putin over his own intelligence services on claims of Russian election meddling.
That had sparked outrage from both sides of the political divide.
Posting on Twitter, Mr Trump said people “who wanted to see a boxing match” were bothered by his rapport with Mr Putin. They would rather go to war than see this!” he wrote.
The tweets came a day after Mr Trump said he had missed out a word when appearing to support Mr Putin’s claim that there was no Russian involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.
President Trump said he accepted his intelligence services’ assessment that Russia had interfered.
Does Donald Trump believe in ominous metaphors? As he affirmed his support for US intelligence agencies, the lights went to black in the White House conference room.
Once order was restored, he said he had been in the dark as to why a storm had swirled around his presidency since his Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin. It was, he said, because he had misspoken.
That is going to be hard for many of the president’s critics to swallow, however. Even if he did mean to say, “I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t be Russia”, it is a pretty weak way to confront the head of a nation accused of targeting the heart of American democracy. What is more, the context of the president’s comments make a simple slip of the tongue seem less likely.
At the very least, the president gave his supporters some material to rally around.
The damage, however, has been done. Mr Trump can give as many White House statements as he likes, but on the biggest stage – standing beside the Russian president – he fumbled. All the explanations cannot change that.
What Trump said then…
The controversy centres on a response he gave to a question at a news conference on Monday following the summit with Mr Putin. This is an extract from the transcript posted by the White House.
TRUMP: My people came to me… they said they think it’s Russia. 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.
Mr Trump said he had reviewed the transcript and realised he needed to clarify.
“In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,” he said.
