The following commentary by Stuart Rothenberg was posted on the Roll Call website July 17, 2018:
Commenting after President Donald Trump’s performance in Helsinki, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell observed, “I have said a number of times, I’ll say it again: The Russians are not our friends. And I entirely believe the assessment of our intelligence community.”
Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander said in a release, “There is no doubt that Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election.”
Neither lawmaker directly criticized Trump, and neither senator castigated the president of the United States for believing Vladimir Putin over the assessment of his own intelligence agencies and experts.