Vermont Senator and sometime presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders took to Twitter today to give President Trump a back-handed compliment for his latest statement on Russian meddling in the US election. But Sanders also jabbed at the president for not having the “guts” to speak out against Russia yesterday, at a press conference with “his authoritarian friend, Vladimir Putin.”
President Trump’s recent statements about Russia have been confusing, and today the president added to that confusion. Here’s what happened.
Yesterday, at a press conference in Helsinki, a reporter asked Trump whether Russia had, in fact, interfered with the 2016 US presidential election. Trump said that he “don’t see any reason why it would be” that Russia had done anything to influence the election.
At the same press confrerence, Trump said “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial [of Russian interference] today.”
Then today, during Trump’s meeting with a group of Congress members, the president said that in fact, he does believe that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 US election.
Trump said that he had read through the transcript from the press conference and found that he had mis-spoken.
He added, “Let me be totally clear in saying that, and I’ve said this many times, I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday. “Could be other people also.”
Sanders said today that he was “glad” that Trump had repudiated his “absurd” statement in Helsinki. The Vermont senator added, “Too bad Trump didn’t have the guts to say that yesterday while with his authoritarian friend, Vladimir Putin.”
The comments section under Bernie Sanders’ tweet immediately filled up with people critical of Sanders for praising Trump, even in such a faint and back-handed way. One commenter wrote, “Why are you validating him? This re-writing of history is pure BS. His tone, the context, what he said before and what he said after prove that he meant what he said the first time.”