Democrats blast Trump for ‘squirming away’ from comments on Russian meddling

US president tries to backtrack on controversial statement at Helsinki summit

US senators have responded angrily to President Donald Trump’s attempt to backtrack on his controversial comments in Helsinki, saying he was trying to "squirm away" from his apparent support of the Russian government over the US intelligence community.

Mr Trump said at a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday that he didn’t see “any reason why” Russia would have meddled in the 2016 US election – despite his own Justice Department indicting 12 Russian military officials for alleged interference.

The president attempted to correct his remarks on Tuesday – after a vocal backlash from Democrats and Republicans alike – by claiming he had misspoken during the joint press conference.

"The sentence should have been, 'I don't see any reason why I wouldn't, or why it wouldn't be Russia" instead of ‘why it would,’ Mr Trump said, adding that he accepted the intelligence community’s findings on election interference.

The president said that he would move “aggressively” to counter any interference in the upcoming midterm elections, and added that the White House was doing "everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in 2018”.

But US legislators were not buying it.

“President Trump tried to squirm away from what he said yesterday,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted, adding that the correction was “twenty-four hours too late, and in the wrong place”.

Mr Schumer called the president’s inability to contradict Mr Putin “ineffective”, and worse, "another sign of weakness".

“It tells President Putin 'continue to take advantage of Donald Trump' because he doesn’t have the courage, the strength, maybe not even the conviction to say to Putin’s face what he tried to say a few minutes ago,” Mr Schumer said.

Senator Kamala Harris took a more direct approach, copying and pasting the transcript of Mr Trump’s previous comments into a tweet and writing: “It’s there in black and white.”

Other legislators, such as Senator Jeanne Shaheen, suggested Congress call on Mr Trump’s translator from his private meeting with Mr Putin to testify on what he heard. Mr Schumer called for hearings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to learn more about what was said at the two-hour meeting.

Even those who did accept Mr Trump’s excuses were not fully satisfied with his apology. Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted he was happy that the president had repudiated his “absurd” statement in Helsinki, but added: “Too bad Trump didn’t have the guts to say that yesterday while with his authoritarian friend, Vladimir Putin.”

Republicans were largely silent on Tuesday afternoon, though several spoke out forcefully against Mr Trump’s comments the day before. Republican Senator John McCain, for example, called the press conference “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory”.

Some Republicans suggested placing more sanction on Russia in the wake of the president’s comments. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he was happy to review any additional sanctions Congress might impose.

Senator Jeff Flake, meanwhile, said he was preparing to introduce a bipartisan resolution to reaffirm Senate support for the intelligence community’s findings.

He summarised the legislation as reading: “We believe the intelligence, regardless of what Putin is saying."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.