“[The president] is usually a shoot-from-the-hip and talk from the top of his head kind of guy,” said a senior Trump administration official who works on issues surrounding Russian disinformation efforts. “I think he was more truthful yesterday than today and is capitulating to an angry caucus.” But, the official predicted, “people aren’t going to forget about this. It will be in the top-three worst moments of his presidency.”…

According to two people familiar with the day’s events, the president was still absorbing well into Tuesday much of the brutal coverage and commentators’ assessments of the Trump-Putin joint press conference and was visibly annoyed at the near-uniformity of stunningly negative media reactions to his performance.

He stewed and dug in his heels for hours, resenting that he was widely portrayed as “weak” and having been “played” by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that he wasn’t getting the kudos he felt he deserved.