United States President Donald Trump has said that he believes in the assessment of his intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in American elections in 2016 and his remarks contrary to this a day earlier in Helsinki was a case of misspeaking.
His statement came after he faced a barrage of criticism from his opponents and even from his own party for not backing the American intelligence community's assessment during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday.
"I have full faith and support for America's great intelligence agencies, always have. And I have felt very strongly that while Russia's actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying and I've said this many times, I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place," Trump told reporters at the White House.
"Could be other people also. A lot of people out there. There was no collusion at all, and people have seen that and they've seen that strongly. The House has already come out very strongly on that, a lot of people have come out strongly on that," he said amidst a national political outrage over his remarks that the Russians did not interfere in the 2016 presidential elections.
At the Helsinki press conference, Trump had said "I don't see any reason why it would be" Russia that meddled in the US election.
Trump, however, said that he misspoke.
"It should've been obvious, I thought it would be obvious, but I would like to clarify just in case I wasn't. A key sentence in my remarks, I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't'. The sentence should have been I don't see any reason why I wouldn't or why it wouldn't be Russia," he said.
"So just to repeat it, I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't', and the sentence should have been -- and I thought I would be maybe a little bit unclear on the transcript or unclear on the actual video. The sentence should have been, 'I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia. Sort of a double negative. So you can put that in, and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.
"I have on numerous occasions noted our intelligence findings that Russians attempted to interfere in our elections," said the US President.
Trump alleged that unlike previous administrations, his administration has and will continue to move aggressively to repeal any efforts and will stop and repel any efforts to interfere in US elections.
"We're doing everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in 2018. We have a lot of power. As you know, President (Barack) Obama has given information just prior to the last election 2016, and they decided not to do anything about it. The reason they decided that was pretty obvious, cause oh, they thought Hillary Clinton was going to win.
"They didn't think it was a big deal. When I won the election, they thought it was a very big deal and all of a sudden, they went into action but it was a little bit late," Trump said.
Top officials of the Obama administration knew about Russia's attempt to interfere in the election in September and they totally buried it because they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win, he alleged.
"By contrast, my administration has taken a very firm stance on a strong action. We're going to take strong action to secure our election systems and the process. Furthermore, as has been stated and we've stated it previously and on many occasions, no collusion," Trump added.
'Had a very good meeting with Putin, more in the offing'
Meanwhile, Trump said that he had a very good meeting with Putin in Helsinki during which they discussed a wide range of bilateral and global issues.
Trump said that the two leaders are planning to have more meetings in the future.
During the two-and-a-half hour long meeting, they talked about numerous things, including the Middle east, Syria, Iran and terrorism, he told reporters at the White House.
"I entered the negotiations with President Putin from a position of tremendous strength. Our economy is booming and our military is being funded USD 700 billion this year, USD 716 billion next year. It will be more powerful as a military than we've ever had before," he said.
He said that they also spoke of Iran.
The US ended the Iran nuclear deal, which was one of the worst deals anyone could imagine, he said, adding that this has had a major impact on Iran and it has substantially weakened Iran.
He hoped that at some point Iran will call the US and will make a new deal.
Iran, he said, is not the same country that it was five months ago. They're no longer looking so much to the Mediterranean and the entire Middle East. They've got some big problems that they can solve probably much easier if they deal with the US.
Trump said he and Putin discussed Israel and its security. A major topic of discussion was North Korea and the need for it to remove its nuclear weapons.
"Russia has assured us of its support, President Putin said he agrees with me 100 per cent and they'll do whatever they have to do to try and make it happen," he said, adding that there is no rush for speed in talks with North Korea.
"The sanctions are remaining, the hostages are back, there have been no tests, there have been no rockets going up for a period of nine months and I think the relationships are very good, so we'll see how that goes," Trump said, adding that they have no time limit.
According to Trump, perhaps the most important issue they discussed was the reduction of nuclear weapons throughout the world.
The United States and Russia have 90 per cent of the total nuclear weapons and it could have a big impact, he said.
Describing nuclear weapons as the greatest threat to the world today, he underscored the need to do something about it.
"I thought that the meeting that I had with President Putin was really strong. I think that they were willing to do things that frankly I wasn't sure whether or not they would be willing to do, and we'll be having future meetings and we'll see whether or not that comes to fruition. But we had a very, very good meeting," Trump added.
