Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
If President Trump wasn’t taking the intense and widespread criticism of his weak Monday performance alongside Vladimir Putin seriously, maybe this will be the wake-up call he needs. Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of Trump’s favorite morning show, Fox & Friends, addressed the president directly Tuesday morning, telling him he got it wrong when he backed Putin’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election over the evidence-based conclusions of his own intelligence services. Senior Republicans have been among those saying Trump got it badly wrong at the summit in Helsinki. Addressing Trump directly, Kilmeade said: “When Newt Gingrich, when Gen. Jack Keane, when Matt Schlapp say the president fell short and made our intelligence apparatus look bad, I think it’s time to pay attention and it’s easily correctable from the president’s perspective. Nobody’s perfect, especially [after] 10 intensive days of summits, private meetings, and everything on his plate. But that moment is the one that’s going to stand out unless he comes out and corrects it.”