Over the course of a roughly 45-minute press conference Monday, President Donald Trump stood beside Russian leader Vladimir Putin both physically and metaphorically. He repeatedly, pointedly declined to acknowledge that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, contrary to the assessment of every relevant US intelligence agency and a fistful of[1] detailed indictments[2] from special counsel Robert Mueller[3]. Moreover, he seemed open to Putin’s suggestion that Russian intelligence assist in running down the evidence.
For Putin, an avowed judo enthusiast, Monday’s events must have come as a pleasant change of pace, less a grapple than a hug. “Between this and the World Cup, I don’t think Russia’s had a better foreign policy week since the defeat of Napoleon,” says Brandon Valeriano, an international conflict researcher at Marine Corps University.
But for the United States, Trump’s fealty to Putin’s version of events raises alarms. It comes just two days after Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen decried Russia’s 2015 assault. “Any attempt to interfere in our elections—successful or unsuccessful—is a direct attack on our democracy and is unacceptable,” Nielsen told[4] a gathering of state election officials Saturday, noting also that Russian interference attempts remain ongoing.
Compare that to Trump. When asked directly if he would “denounce what happened in 2016, and warn [Putin] never to do it again," the US president first seemed to dabble in a garbled conspiracy theory about the Democratic National Committee server that had been hacked, before pivoting to a “gotta hear both sides” analysis.
"I don’t think Russia’s had a better foreign policy week since the defeat of Napoleon."
Brandon Valeriano, Marine Corps University
“My people came to me, [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think