Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-AL) issued the following statement regarding President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Monday morning in Helsinki.

  “I applaud President Trump’s decision to start a dialogue with President Putin and I’m glad he is making it a priority,” he said. “However, we must remember that Russia is not an ally – economically or militarily.  They are an adversary.  The United States should not tolerate actions by the Russians that intervene in our domestic affairs or pose a threat to our national security.”

Byrne joined a bipartisan condemnation of the President after he said he saw no reason to believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

On Tuesday, the president sought to clarify his words saying he had misspoken.

“The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t, or why it wouldn’t be Russia’ instead of “why it would,” Trump said

Trump made his original comments standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump said Tuesday. But he added, “It could be other people also. A lot of people out there. There was no collusion at all.”