ON VOTE MEDDLING SAYS HE MISSPOKE A BESIEGED TRUMP

1 VOL. CLXVII.. No. 58,027 + 2018 The New York Times CompanyNEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2018C MYKNxxx,2018-07-18,A,001,Bs-4C,E2_+U(D54 G1D)y+$!;!@!#!{Thomas L. FriedmanPAGE A23E DITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23 WASHINGTON Under unre-lenting pressure from congres-sional Republicans, his own advis-ers and his allies on Fox News,President TRUMP abruptly re-versed course on Tuesday andclaimed he had misspoken duringa news conference with PresidentVladimir V. Putin about whetherRussia tried to influence the 2016presidential TRUMP , reading from ascript, said he believed the assess-ment of the United States intelli-gence agencies that Russia had in-terfered in the campaign afterhaving seemed to have acceptedMr. Putin s assertion the day be-fore that Russia was not misunderstanding, he said,grew out of an unsuccessful at-tempt to use a double negativewhen he answered a questionabout whether he believed or his intelligence agencies.}

2 My people came to me, he saidMonday in Helsinki, Finland. They said they think it s Russia. Ihave President Putin; he just saidit s not Russia. I will say this: Idon t see any reason why it wouldbe. On Tuesday, he said that he hadmisspoken. The sentence shouldhave been, I don t see any reasonwhy it wouldn t be Russia, sort ofa double negative, Mr. Trumpsaid. So you can put that in, and Ithink that probably clarifiesthings pretty good. A BESIEGED TRUMPSAYS HE MISSPOKEON VOTE MEDDLINGA sserting He Meantto Agree With MARK LANDLERand MAGGIE HABERMANC ontinued on Page A12 President TRUMP faulted an at-tempt to use a double BRENNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESWASHINGTON After 17months, three weeks and sixdays of Donald J. TRUMP s tumul-tuous presidency, some of hisfellow Republicans had finallyhad enough. The dam has bro-ken, Senator Bob Corker, aRepublican critic from Tennes-see, said on has it really broken and ifso for how long?

3 As Mr. Trumpscrambled to patch any holes onTuesday by reimagining hisextraordinary news conferencewith Russia s president the daybefore in Helsinki, Finland, thequestion was whether he hadreached a genuine turning pointor simply endured another one ofthose episodes that seems deci-sive but ultimately fades into thenext the moment, at least, thistime did feel different. Afterseeming to take PresidentVladimir V. Putin s word overthat of America s intelligenceagencies on Russian electionmeddling, Mr. TRUMP was beingaccused not only of poor judg-ment but of treason and notjust by fringe elements and libe-ral talk show hosts, but by aformer a presidency without prece-dent, mark another moment forthe history books. While theaccusation of treason has beenthrown around on the edges ofthe political debate from time totime, never in the modern erahas it become part of the nationalconversation in such a the president s defenders,this all sounds like another erup-tion of what they often callTrump Derangement he drives his critics to suchextremes, they argue, says moreabout them than it does aboutMr.

4 TRUMP . As the presidentbacktracked on his deferentialcomments at Monday s meetingwith Mr. Putin and asserted thathe really does accept that Russiaintervened in the 2016 election,allies assumed that this, too,would blow the list of Republicansrebuking the president includednot just the usual suspects likeMr. Corker, who has been a fre-quent critic and plans on retiring NEWS ANALYSISThe Word Treason Enters the DebateBy PETER BAKERC ontinued on Page A12 Using his notes, President TRUMP repeated his claim on Tuesday that there was no collusion between his campaign and the BRENNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESM aybe it was the s faultfor unnerving him. Or maybe theWhite House staff had left Presi-dent TRUMP ill prepared before hisstunning remarks in Helsinki onMonday, when he sided with Rus-sia over his own intelligence a bar in central Pennsylva-nia, voters wondered if electionmeddling was really so terrible. Ata mall in Arizona, they insistedthat Mr.

5 TRUMP had actually beenquite tough on Russia until, well,whatever that was in interviews with conserva-tives and TRUMP supportersacross a half-dozen states, therewere many theories about thepresident s performance hewas tougher in private; he is cut-ting a megadeal; he has a plan and more than a few questionsabout his news conference withPresident Vladimir V. Putin ofRussia, which left congressionalRepublicans and at least somevoters struggling to endorse theirleader s approach. You re essentially putting Rus-sia first, said Chris Ford, 26, a Re-publican in Dallas, tweaking apresident who already had onlyhis lukewarm support, as of thisweek. It s hard to see how that sputting America first. It is by now the signal politicalclich of the TRUMP age that hismost dedicated admirers willprobably never abandon him. Themost telling aside of Mr. TRUMP s2016 candidacy that he couldshoot somebody on Fifth Avenueand retain his support has giv-en way to a presidency that hasbroadly proved him right, throughtrade wars and porn stars, praisefor foreign dictators and excusesfor white even by Mr.

6 TRUMP s ex-traordinary standards, the sum-mit has supplied a singular testcase, compelling voters to reckonwith the consequences for , for the midterm elections,for American democracy whena president agrees with a foreignadversary over his own intelli-gence agencies on the Tuesday afternoon, amid astream of criticism from lawmak-ers, Mr. TRUMP appeared to back-track, saying he MISSPOKE at thenews conference in Helsinki, thathe supports America s intelli-In Largely Unshakable Camp, a Blunder Rattles the Faith of SomeBy MATT FLEGENHEIMERC ontinued on Page A14 TRUMP s Conduct WithPutin Hardens theResolve of OthersNEW DELHI On a swelter-ing Wednesday in June, a rail-thinwoman named Rehmati grippedthe doctor s table with both could hardly hold herself up-right, the pain in her stomach wasso had traveled for 26 hours ina hot oven of a bus to visit her hus-band, a migrant worker here inthe Indian capital.

7 By the time shegot here, the city was an oven, too:111 degrees Fahrenheit bylunchtime, and Rehmati was in anemergency doctor, Reena Yadav, didn tknow exactly what had madeRehmati sick, but it was clearlylinked to the heat. Dr. Yadav sus-pected dehydration, possibly ag-gravated by fasting during Rama-dan. Or it could have been foodpoisoning, common in summerbecause food spoils Yadav put Rehmati, who is31 and goes by one name, on adrip. She held her hand and toldher she would be fine. Rehmatileaned over and heat can kill, as it didby the dozens in Pakistan in as many of South Asia s al-ready-scorching cities get evenhotter, scientists and economistsare warning of a quieter, more far-reaching danger: Extreme heat isdevastating the health and liveli-Summer Heat in India Becomes a Silent Killer By SOMINI SENGUPTAAir-conditioners in New Delhi. Heat-related illnesses have forced many workers to take days KHANDELWAL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES111-Degree Days HitPoor the HardestContinued on Page A10 President TRUMP is inciting atrade war, undermining NATOand painting Europe as a foe.

8 It sno wonder, then, that the Euro-pean Union is looking elsewherefor Tuesday in Tokyo, it signedits largest trade deal ever, a pactwith Japan that will slash customsduties on products like Europeanwine and cheese, while graduallyreducing tariffs on cars. Theagreement will cover a quarter ofthe global economy by somemeasures the largest free-tradearea in the world and is the lat-est in a string of efforts either con-cluded or in the works with coun-tries like Australia, Vietnam andeven deal with Japan, and theothers being negotiated, point to amore assertive Europe, one that islooking past the frosty ties withthe United States, and even thecoming withdrawal of Britainfrom the bloc. In recent months,European Union leaders havevoiced ever more confident sup-port for free trade, refusing toback down in the face of the threatof tariffs from Washington and in-stead aggressively courting no matter how many barri-ers to international commerce theEuropean Union manages to teardown, its leaders will not changeone economic fact of life: TheUnited States remains the Conti-nent s largest trading is no escaping the damagefrom Mr.

9 TRUMP s campaignagainst imports like cars andsteel. The United States is the onebig market, said Holger Schmied-ing, chief economist at Berenberg,a bank based in Hamburg. Theother accords, he said, are dam-age limitation rather than com-pensation. European officials began inten-Europe Cultivates New PartnersAs Old Ally Loosens Trade TiesBy JACK EWINGC ontinued on Page A7 Dean G. Skelos, once one of themost powerful figures in NewYork State politics, was foundguilty of bribery, extortion andconspiracy on Tuesday, the latestin a drumbeat of corruption con-victions to roil Albany in a heatedelection verdict itself was not neces-sarily a surprise, as a differentjury had found Mr. Skelos, the for-mer leader of the State Senate,and his son guilty on the samecharges in 2015 before the convic-tions were overturned. But its tim-ing on the heels of three othersuccessful Albany-focused pros-ecutions this year, including onelast week in the courtroom nextdoor fed the perception that theculture of ethical neglect in thestate capital had reached its an hour of the convic-tion, political candidates and gov-ernment watchdog groups werealready lobbing criticism of Al-bany s seemingly intractablewebs of money and power andof the power brokers, includingGov.

10 Andrew M. Cuomo, who theysaid had not done enough to un-tangle jury in Federal DistrictCourt in Manhattan deliberatedfor three days before finding and his son, Adam, guiltyon all eight counts. Prosecutorssaid the older Mr. Skelos, the for-mer leader of the Senate s Repub-lican majority, had wielded his po-litical clout to pressure business In Second Trial,Titan of AlbanyIs Guilty, AgainBy VIVIAN WANGC ontinued on Page A20 California is moving levees and restor-ing floodplains as it prepares to dealwith more extreme weather. PAGE A15N ATIONAL A15-18 Fighting Floods With FloodsMaking your own is easier than bakingyour own bread, Melissa Clark , a parfait-style delight. PAGE D7F OOD D1-8A Guide to Homemade YogurtA Guatemalan family wanted to leavebehind everything bad. Ahead, though,was a huge torment in the UnitedStates that still haunts them. PAGE A4I NTERNATIONAL A4-14 Deported and Trying to HealGoldman Sachs said David M.