One of the Obama administration’s greatest foreign-policy missteps was the failed “reset” button it attempted to hit with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. President Donald Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki this week, and the calamitous press conference that followed, was far worse. Instead of a reset button, one might say Trump hit the self-destruct button.

What else could we say after first watching the president reject the assessment of his own intelligence agencies while standing next to Putin and then, under fire the following day, try to walk it all back by saying he has “full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies, always have”?

If the history of presidencies is written by the actions of key players at key moments, Helsinki will go down as a critical moment for this president.

High-profile meetings with Russians have often been key moments for presidencies. After all, Ronald Reagan is now widely seen as having demonstrated leadership by walking away from Mikhail Gorbachev and a possible arms agreement at Reykjavik in 1986. George W. Bush took a hit for his first meeting with Putin, but confronted the Russian leader numerous times, including at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 over his invasion of Georgia.

But what’s different this time is that Trump didn’t demonstrate a leadership vision, strength or a broader sense of purpose in his meeting with the former KGB agent turned strongman. He didn’t tangle with the Russia and lose. The American president showed an odd panache for discounting, in public, his own intelligence agencies and seemed intent on bolstering the very Russian leader he should’ve see as an adversary. Helsinki is where, for a moment, this presidency came apart.

The context here matters a great deal. The president arrived in Helsinki after a tumultuous run through Europe where he chided allies and likely eroded important relationships with the United Kingdom and the European Union.

He also arrived in Helsinki shortly after his own Justice Department indicted 12 Russian officials for conducting cyberattacks against the presidential nominee of a major American political party. Those indictments are part of a long-running investigation — conducted by Robert Mueller — into Russia’s interference in the American 2016 presidential election.

We’ve heard from the start of this presidency that Trump is simply thin-skinned about the Russian investigation, because he believes it to be a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the credibility of his election. He therefore has a habit of dismissing it as a “witch hunt.”

But at some point a long time ago, that ceased to be a meaningful explanation of the president’s actions. It certainly doesn’t explain his comments in Helsinki where he contradicted seven U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI and his own director of National Intelligence, about Russia’s interference.

“They said they think it’s Russia,” Trump said, standing at a podium next to the Russian president. “I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.” He also said Putin was “incredibly strong” in his denial.

We can be grateful that the president is now walking these comments back, but what he still isn’t doing is demonstrating he understands the larger leadership demand that he faces at this moment.

No one has shown collusion. But it’s long been undeniable that the Russians did interfere in our elections.

House Speaker Paul Ryan made this clear: “We just conducted a yearlong investigation into Russia’s interference in our elections. They did interfere in our elections. It’s really clear. There should be no doubt about that.”

Texas Sen. John Cornyn was blunter, telling reporters, “I don’t think we should be taking a former KGB colonel’s word for what their intelligence apparatus is doing or not doing. I believe our intelligence community.”

No one should be more troubled by such interference than the president himself. What Americans were looking for from Trump at this summit was not a photo opp with another foreign leader. What many Americans were hoping for was a leadership moment, when the president confronted Putin over nefarious actions on the world stage — actions that go well beyond trying to undermine democracy in America. Many Americans were hoping the president would show he understands how to handle a foe.

Half of the reason why the president’s performance in Helsinki ignited a firestorm is that there is wide agreement that Russia is not a friend of the United States. We can negotiate with foes and even work with them, but only if we first honestly assess them for what they are.

Given the fact that the president is unwilling to do that, even with a backdrop of an ongoing investigation into Russian election interference, it’s now on Congress to show leadership on this issue. It can do that by passing legislation protecting Mueller’s investigation and ensuring he can’t be fired. Congress can also bolster existing sanctions and pass a resolution identifying Russia for the adversary it is.

Now that the president has backtracked on the worst part of his remarks, there will be pressure to let all of this wash away. That would be a mistake. The net result of Trump’s Helsinki run is that the United States looks weaker on the world’s stage and unsure of itself when dealing with Russian aggression.

Sen. John McCain, as part of a tough rebuke, concluded that “it is clear that the summit in Helsinki was a tragic mistake.” The real tragedy would be if we allowed that mistake to be the final word.

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