In the most embarrassing and unconscionable press conference between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of a hostile foreign power, Trump embraced Russia and Putin over his own country.
In a performance just as bad as his Charlottesville debacle, when Trump said there were good neo-Nazis, Trump defended and took Putin's word over our entire federal government intelligence services.
A reporter asked Putin why Americans and Trump should "believe your statement that Russia did not intervene in the 2016 election, given the evidence that u.s. intelligence agencies have provided?"
In a weird moment, Trump instead took over the question and bashed the Democrats and touted his electoral college win instead of confronting Russia's cyber terrorism against America.
Trump said, "I'm going to let the president answer the second part of that question. But as you know the whole concept of that came up perhaps a little bit before, but it came out as a reason why the democrats lost an election. Which, frankly, they should have been able to win, because the electoral college is much more advantageous for democrats as you know than it is to republicans. We won the electoral college by a lot. 306-223 I believe."
He continued, "But just to say it one time again, and I say it all the time. There was no collusion. I didn't know the president. There was nobody to collude with. There was no collusion with the campaign, and every time you hear all of these 12 and 14, it's stuff has has nothing to do, and they admit, these are not people involved in the campaign, but to the average reader out there, they are saying well, maybe that does -- it doesn't, and even the people involved, some perhaps told me stories although in one case the FBI said there was no lie. There was no lie. Somebody else said there was. We ran a brilliant campaign, and that's why I'm President. Thank you."
Putin called the idea of election meddling and collusion with Trump officials nonsense.
Translator for Putin said, "We should not proceed from the immediate political interests that guide certain political powers in our countries. We should be guided by facts. Could you name a single fact that would definitively prove the collusion? These are nonsense. Just like the president recently mentioned. Yes, the public at large in the United States had a certain perceived opinion of the candidates during the campaign. There's nothing particularly extraordinary about it. That's a usual thing. President Trump when he was a candidate, he mentioned the need to restore the Russia/US relationship, and it's clear that certain part of American society felt sympathetic about it and different people could express their sympathies in different ways, but isn't that natural? Isn't it natural to be sympathetic toward a person who is willing to restore the relationship with our country who wants to work with us?
