Donald Trump screws up and confesses that Russia helped him win the election

| 1:30 pm EDT May 30, 2019
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When the full extent of a criminal scandal is in the process of being exposed, politicians often try an incremental confession as a last ditch measure: admit to one part of the scandal so you can deny the worst part of the scandal. It’s not clear if Donald Trump was purposely trying to use this strategy this morning, or if he simply couldn’t help himself. Either way he screwed up, because he just admitted in exact words that Russia helped him win the 2016 election.

Here’s what Donald Trump tweeted this morning: “Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax…And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media say he fought back against this phony crime that didn’t exist, this horrendous false accusation, and he shouldn’t fight back, he should just sit back and take it. Could this be Obstruction? No, Mueller didn’t find Obstruction either. Presidential Harassment!” Wait a minute here.

Trump quickly deleted this tweet, leading to questions about whether he realized how badly he’d screwed up. But then he tweeted the same thing again, merely fixing a typo. So there you have it: he stands by the words “I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected.” Except he doesn’t, because later in the morning, he insisted to reporters that he didn’t actually mean any of it. Okay, whatever.

The point is that Donald Trump is spinning so out of control, he no longer has any semblance of self control. Either he made the terrible strategic decision ofconfessing that Russia helped him win the election so he could deny the part about being in on it, or he’s just going to start confessing to everything now, period.