You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player
Donald Trump on Tuesday made a remarkable U-turn. It comes close to a contrite apology from a president who is never known for issuing apologies.
I have full faith and support for America's great intelligence agencies - always have.
Of course, it's been an extraordinary day since Mr Trump held that joint press conference with Mr Putin. It's not just the intelligence community - a State Department official told me they were furious, and irate by what Mr Trump has said, and they simply didn't know what the president was doing. So across the administration, across lawmakers, they are at once and as usual flabbergasted by what Mr Trump is saying. And this one has really been played out in public.
And it's Mr Trump who has for once backed down. And the Republican party have rebelled, and not just the usual suspects saying we cannot stand Trump. We cannot stand what he says. You need to come out and criticise the Russians directly. But even fervent supporters of Mr Trump, like Newt Gingrich, he even came out and said Mr Trump needed to rectify what he'd said immediately.
But I would like to clarify just in case it wasn't. In 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. So -
Now, of course, Mr Trump's performance had provoked a resurgence of the "i" word - impeachment. And some people were saying that this added to efforts to secure his impeachment - that surely Republicans must break from the party now and come out against him. But in fact, it seems like the Republicans even before his reversal on Tuesday were being more muted.
And -
Paul Ryan suggested that he would support extra sanctions on Russia.
If the Foreign Affairs Committee or the Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee think that there are other sanctions that we have not yet placed upon Russia, I'm more than happy to consider those.
So rather than a direct attack on Mr Trump, the Republicans seem to be sticking to their guns on Russia and calling for firmer measures. And there's one analyst said to me, most people just cover their eyes and cover their ears when it comes to Mr Trump.
