Washington Post assessment

If anyone can recall a performance by a U.S. president that rivaled the one seen around the world Monday, let them come forward.

[...]

On a day when the setting called for a show of strength and resolve from an American president, Trump instead offered deference, defensiveness, equivocation and weakness.

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Here was a president turning his back on the collective work of U.S. intelligence agencies, looking the other way at indictments returned last week by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III against 12 Russian military intelligence officers who sought to undermine American democracy during the 2016 election, and falling back as he so often has on attacks against Hillary Clinton, criticism of Democrats and boasts about the size of his electoral college victory.

  WaPo

Every speech in every setting is a campaign speech. His mental disconnect from the situation is impressive.

In an attempt to say both sides have their views of what happened during the last presidential election, he proffered that his own view is that he can’t bring himself to accept that the Russians did it. “I don’t see any reason why [Russia would interfere],” he said.

Who believes that? It's not his view. He knows very well the reason why. It's his way of denying it happened.

It is a fiction to which he has reverted from the very beginning of his presidency, in the face of repeated and escalating evidence to the contrary. In Helsinki, he said that the Russian leader had offered “an extremely strong and powerful denial” of interference and so he would not forcefully offer evidence to the contrary. What he may have said in the private meeting with Putin is lost to history, given the absence of notetakers or advisers present.

I bet the Russians have audiotape.

[Russia's] attacks on U.S. democracy have sown internal discord and distrust, setting Americans against Americans. [Putin] has watched the U.S.-European alliance come under enormous strain, with the president now branding the European Union a foe.

On Monday, he watched Trump bow to what the president must assume are the demands of diplomacy — offering public praise and compliments to the Russian, rather than blunt talk when called for — and rather than standing up, as Putin did when he was questioned about the interference.

Monday’s news conference was the capstone to an international trip in which, at every opportunity, the president undercut U.S. allies in Europe while playing nice with Putin. He did this through repeated derogatory tweets, backroom hectoring of European leaders (especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel), interviews with the British media (in which he attacked British Prime Minister Theresa May) and the U.S. press and in public settings with other world heads of government.

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Time and again, in the face of strong and direct questions by two American reporters, Jeff Mason of Reuters and Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press, the president refused to stand up for the country he was elected to represent and protect.

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That’s not to say it will fundamentally change the course of his presidency, given the fluidity of events, the reality that attention spans are short and the probability of more shocks from various directions that will put the focus elsewhere. Nothing much changes minds about the president, and this trip and Monday news conference might not, either.

[...]

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) [...] said in a statement that “there is no question that Russia interfered” in the election. Yet members of Ryan’s conference continue to attack the Justice Department, the FBI and Mueller’s team for attempting to carry out a thorough and complete investigation into exactly what happened.

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All of which raises the obvious question: If the president’s comments in Helsinki reflect his true thinking, if he sees the United States as being as responsible for poor relations with Russia as the Russians are, if he is not willing to stand behind the intelligence agencies sworn to protect this country, what exactly does “America First” really mean?

It means fuck-all coming out of Trump's - and the GOP's - mouth. It's merely a dog whistle to a certain category of Americans who haven't enough brain matter to follow a thought from inception to conclusion.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.