CNN anchor Erin Burnett was not impressed with the White House’s walkback of Donald Trump’s press conference in Helsinki.
After the president insisted Tuesday that the whole issue could be explained by a single misspoken word, Burnett openly suggested the White House thought the American people were dumb.
“How stupid does Trump think we Americans are? The president’s excuse for his embarrassing press conference where he sided with President Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence chiefs does not add up,” said Burnett in an unusually strong opening monologue on her “Outfront” program.
“President Trump read from a prepared statement, offering up frankly what seems to be a dog ate my homework excuse on how things went terribly wrong in Helsinki, ” she added.
Burnett then went on a lengthy attack that might have sounded more familiar among primetime opinion hosts and laid out her case why Trump’s explanation didn’t work for her.
After being heavily criticized — even by some of his closest allies — Trump did some damage control on Tuesday over his handling of the Putin summit where the president sided with the autocrat over the assessments American intelligence agencies on the issue of election meddling.
In his clarification Tuesday, Trump said the issue came down to a single word.
“In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,’” said Trump. “The sentence should’ve been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.’ Sort of a double-negative.”
Watch above.