NY Daily News cover following Helsinki summit shows Trump shooting Uncle Sam

Tuesday’s cover of The New York Daily News depicts President Trump shooting Uncle Sam in the head after his jaw-dropping joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The cover of Trump’s hometown newspaper shows the president holding hands with a shirtless Putin while shooting the classic symbol of American democracy on Fifth Avenue in New York, a nod to Trump’s infamous 2016 claim that he could shoot someone “in the middle of Fifth Avenue” and not lose support.

{mosads}“I have the most loyal people, did you ever see that? I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn’t lose voters,” he said during a campaign event.

.@realdonaldtrump derides reports with which he disagrees as “fake news,” then buys the Russian narrative hook, line, sinker, pole and boat. https://t.co/TGHurpVDKy

An early look at Tuesday’s front… pic.twitter.com/BXsoZsIT4B

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 16, 2018

The cover is set for the day after Trump’s highly anticipated summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, which caused immense backlash after the president contradicted the U.S. intelligence community and refused to condemn Russia for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“My people came to me … they said they think it’s Russia,” Trump said. “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.”

“But I have confidence in both parties,” he added.

The summit came just three days after the Justice Department indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for their alleged roles hacking Democratic officials and entities during the 2016 presidential race.

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Trump “must appreciate that Russia is not our ally,” while Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called the press conference “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory,” among multiple other critical comments from Republicans.

Fox News, CNN and MSNBC correspondents also tore into Trump for the press conference, with Fox’s John Roberts saying the “consensus” is that Trump “threw the United States under the bus.”

Democrats ripped Trump’s performance “pathetic” and “disgraceful.”