Whatever happened with that previously floated notion of having lawyers screen Trump’s tweets?

This weekend would have probably been a good time to employ that method. Coming out of last week’s G20 Summit, and a sidebar meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that ran over the allotted time by several hours, the president tweeted out some outlandish garbage.

Most odious and ill-conceived would be his suggestion that he and Putin talked about forming a joint, U.S.-Russia cyber security unit.

That would be the equivalent of the fox and the hens forming a joint chick security unit.

In other words, a really, really bad idea.

The condemnation of said bad idea was swift, as Republican lawmakers quickly piled on, calling out the man who occasionally drifts into the Oval Office from his golf outings, for photo-ops.

This obviously should not happen–& obviously will not happen. Why the President of the United States would tweet it is inexplicably bizarre https://t.co/Y3YvnzRaku

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) July 10, 2017

Putin is an enemy of free religion, speech, press and protest. He is now plotting future cyber attacks on America. He won't become a friend. https://t.co/YU18LOjrJ6

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) July 10, 2017

By Sunday evening, however, somebody had apparently got in his ear, and convinced Trump that of all the things he could have tweeted out, tweeting to the world that we would be working on cyber security with the very people our intelligence community has charged with hacking into the Democratic National Committee emails and trying to influence the direction of a U.S. election didn’t make him look good.

It made him look gullible, actually.

He sent out a new tweet Sunday evening, disputing his own statement from earlier in the day.

The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2017

It was a case of too little, too late.

Trump is basically admitting his own attempts at diplomacy are useless? pic.twitter.com/jfEqzK45uF

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) July 10, 2017

I have no idea what our president is saying. But maybe it was clearer in the original Russian? https://t.co/Cvw8jiKiyO

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) July 10, 2017

Test Balloon Disavowed https://t.co/VJbjUqyJ61

— Jared Rizzi (@JaredRizzi) July 10, 2017

While some of the reaction may be partisan-motivated, as there will always be those waiting to see the leader of the opposite party stumble (and let’s face it, the idea of joining with Russia on cyber security was a new level of fail), the earlier reactions by members of his own party are a clear indicator that Trump is floundering badly, when it comes to foreign diplomacy.

He’s got a few good people around him, and that includes our intelligence community. He needs to listen to them.