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Trump’s recent behavior is too ridiculous even for Russian state TV

"He really smells like an agent of the Kremlin."

A member of the Russian press before the joint press conference between Donald Trump and  Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
A member of the Russian press before the joint press conference between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump read a prepared statement on Tuesday in which he attempted to walk back remarks from his widely criticized joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Trump then immediately contradicted himself and reverted to questioning the U.S. intelligence community’s consensus assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

Russian state media is really enjoying the reaction to Trump’s recent rhetoric and performance in Helsinki.

According to reporter and Russian media analyst Julia Davis, Russia’s state television accused the President of the United States of “licking Putin’s boots” during Monday’s press conference:

Then Russian state TV suggested that Trump “really smells like an agent of the Kremlin”:

Following Trump’s attempted clean-up on Tuesday, Russian media speculated that Trump only tried to reverse course due to the intense criticism of his remarks:

This analysis closely resembled what Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said about Trump’s brief flip-flop, referring to it as a “hostage tape” on Tuesday:

“As the rage-storm swirled, the president bowed to the inevitable, genuflecting before U.S. Intelligence agencies whose judgment must never be questioned and recited the oath of loyalty to the spy bureaucrats in charge of the country.”

Elsewhere in state-run Russian media, a newspaper headline proclaimed “The West’s attempts to isolate Russia failed.” RT reacted to the Helsinki summit by declaring “The Cold War is over” and claiming the U.S. and Russia are now allies.

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Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Trump in the Oval Office last year, said the talks between Putin and the U.S. president were “Magnificent… Better than super.”