2016 ELECTION/DEMS/ELECTION/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump, a week after downplaying Russian interference in US elections, said Tuesday [7-24-18] he is ‘very concerned’ that Russia will look to impact the 2018 midterm elections and said he believes Moscow will look to boost Democrats this time. Trump offered no evidence for his claim that Russia would look to help Democrats win in 2018 beyond claiming he has been tougher on Russia than his predecessors…Trump’s tweet comes a week after he faced blistering criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike for touting Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election and challenging the US intelligence community’s assessment of that interference. Trump partially walked back his comments after returning to the US by saying he misspoke when he said he didn’t see why ‘it would be Russia.’ But the next day, Trump replied ‘no’ when asked if he believes Russia is still targeting the US — with the White House press secretary later claiming he was not responding to that question. The US intelligence community concluded after the 2016 election that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign and help Trump win. While Putin denied any Russian interference last week, he confirmed that he did want Trump to win the presidency ‘because he talked about bringing the US-Russia relationship back to normal.'”
-Jeremy Diamond, “Trump suddenly says he’s ‘very concerned’ about 2018 Russian interference,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, July 24, 2018 3:02 pm