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It was possible that Vladimir Putin would be the man in a tough spot after his summit meeting Monday with President Donald Trump.
Instead, most of the squirming is being done not by the Russian leader, but by Republicans in Congress, by the American intelligence community and by overseas allies.
All of them were left in limbo by Mr. Trump’s decision not to challenge Mr. Putin publicly about any of the toughest issues between Washington and Moscow: Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its interference in eastern Ukraine, the poisoning of Russian exiles in London or Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
At least at the postsummit press conference, Mr. Putin escaped the meeting in Helsinki with the U.S. president appearing to accept his denials of official Russian interference in American politics, and without having been called out by his counterpart on any of those other deeds.
In one indicator of how that went down back in Russia, as Mr. Putin flew home a headline on the website of RT, the Russian television network, blared: “I wanted Trump to win—Putin.”
But for Mr. Trump’s potential friends, the equation was different. Most Republicans want a tougher line on Russia than the president offered. The intelligence community has said repeatedly—including in a statement issued just hours after the close of the summit—that it believes Russia meddled in the 2016 election, while the nation’s top intelligence official, Trump appointee Dan Coats, said just last week the Russians are preparing to do so again.
Allies such as Angela Merkel of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France having been publicly skewered by Mr. Trump, now doubtless will wonder why Mr. Putin got no such rebuke—and whether the president will have their back as they seek to continue economic sanctions and otherwise confront Mr. Putin over Russia’s interference in Ukraine.
There are, of course, others who will find no problem in how Mr. Trump chose to handle the summit and the public presentation of it. Though Trump voters are only marginally more favorable toward Mr. Putin and Russia than are other Americans—just 19% of Trump voters told Wall Street Journal/NBC News pollsters this spring they saw Russia as an ally, compared with 16% of Americans generally—Trump voters also have shown consistently that they are inclined to trust the president’s handling of Russia.
“Republicans should defend the president,” said John Feehery, a former top Republican staffer in the House. “I watched the press conference and I found it to be about what I expected it to be, typical Trump. It wasn’t treasonous. It wasn’t embarrassing.”
More Republicans expressed open disagreement with the president’s approach, though. The most vociferous, not surprisingly, was Sen. John McCain, the most outspoken of GOP critics, who issued a blistering statement that called Mr. Trump’s press conference “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” Mr. Trump, he added, had “abased himself…before a tyrant.”