U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, July 16, 2018. Photo by Grigory Dukor/Reuters

White House restores question to Trump-Putin transcript

Politics

WASHINGTON — The White House has updated its transcript of President Donald Trump's news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin to include a key question an American journalist asked the Russian leader.

This question to Putin — "Did you want President Trump to win the election?" — was left out of the initial version of the White House transcript of the July 16 news conference after Trump and Putin held a summit in Finland.

The White House had said the omission was "by no means malicious," blaming an audio glitch.

A subsequent search of the transcript showed Saturday that it had been updated to include the question.

Putin had answered, "Yes, I did. Yes, I did," but it was difficult to follow without the question.

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White House restores question to Trump-Putin transcript first appeared on the PBS News website.

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