Yesterday evening, Trump's National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster stated that the information Trump revealed during his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was not confidential.

"There's nothing the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people".

Today, in the White House briefing room to discuss Trump's first overseas trip, McMaster said "the premise of that article is false, that in any way the president had a conversation that was inappropriate or that resulted in any kind of lapse in national security".

Trump is under fire after reports that he revealed highly classified intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in their Oval Office meeting last week, in a way that they could identify secret sources and methods, and potentially compromise a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State terror group.

The anonymous officials told the Post that the information Trump relayed during the Oval Office meeting had been provided by a US partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement.

McMaster insisted that the revelations would not harm intelligence sharing agreements with US allies, arguing that everything the president discussed was already available through "open-sourced reporting".

"I think we could do with a little less drama from the White House on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda", he told Bloomberg Business.

"The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation", McMaster said. "At no time, at no time, were intelligent sources or methods discussed".

The Kremlin has dismissed reports that Donald Trump shared classified information with Russian officials last week as "complete nonsense".

Another Israeli officer said that officials in the country are "boiling mad and demanding answers".

In 1964, for example, Lyndon Johnson confounded the Central Intelligence Agency and the Air Force by stating at a press conference that we'd developed the SR-71 supersonic reconnaissance aircraft that, he said, flew at speeds in excess of 2,000 miles per hour and at altitudes in excess of 70,000 feet. "He wasn't briefed on the source or method of the information either".

"The story that came out tonight as reported is false", he said.

"This is perhaps the gravest allegation of presidential misconduct in the scandal-ridden four months of the Trump administration", the blog said.

Let this be a lesson for Trump: if you're going to talk about closely-guarded secrets that even some agencies within the USA government don't know about, pinch yourself before you act on impulse and blurt it out to an adversarial foreign power.

"The president wasn't even aware of where this information came from".

But as with the abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey last week, most GOP lawmakers have been restrained in their criticism of Trump.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump's revelation, homeland security adviser Tom Bossert reportedly alerted the CIA and the National Security Agency about what had transpired.

Officials told CNN at the time that the ban came about following the collection of intercepted material and "human intelligence".

"Duckworth said: "For a president who complains so much about leaks, this is stunning".

The CIA is declining to comment.

There are also concerns on Capitol Hill.

Watching the White House these days is like driving down an interstate, but every two miles you have to slow to a crawl as you pass yet another auto crash.

He denied the United States president had caused a "lapse in national security".

Regardless of whether the release of classified information to the Russians is legal or not, Trump's decision was the definition of stupidity.

"Maybe they're busy", offered Burr, the North Carolina Republican who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Current and former USA officials told the Post that the disclosure jeopardized a valuable source of intelligence on ISIS. "That's the problem with the Russians - they lie".

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican in his first term, tweeted: "For the goal of transparency, the White House should share a transcript of the meeting with the House and Senate intelligence committees".

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. - who had just had a root canal - read reporters a statement he scrawled out in the dentist's chair after learning about the story.