The Atlantic

Trump Can Never Go Too Far for Republicans

Even the most serious GOP senators were willing to take the president at his word on Russia—no matter how transparent his excuses.
Source: Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters

Give Donald Trump and his team this much: They didn’t have a lot to work with.

Facing an uproar even among allies, the president on Tuesday he’d made alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Speaking before a meeting with members of Congress, Trump said that in contrast to his remarks in Helsinki, he accepted the U.S. intelligence community’sconclusion blaming Russia for election interference—though he immediately undercut that by saying others might have been involved. (“Could have been other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.”) He also claimed that he

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