It was press conference as national nightmare, summed up succinctly by the BBC on its home page minutes later with this headline: "Trump Sides With Russia Against FBI."
And though Monday’s joint Trump-Putin post-summit appearance in Helsinki was a news conference — with some admirably tough questions from two experienced wire-service reporters — it also was a moment in which no media interpretation was really necessary.
As my Washington Post colleague Mark Berman put it on Twitter: "I'm really struck by what a huge story it would be if it emerged that Trump was privately questioning the intel assessment re: Russian meddling and suggesting he buys Russia's denial.