White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday she didn't think Trump regretted the initial tweet. As for his possible motivation, she would only say it was perhaps about "raising the question of doubt in general." She also could not explain Trump's new reference to possible surveillance.

Mark Warner of Virginia, top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said, "This administration never ceases to amaze me." He said the tweeting is an example of Trump's "willingness to just kind of make things up.""It's remarkable the president was so flippant to make his original tweet and then frankly stonewall the media and the country for weeks," Warner said. "I don't know how this serves the country's interests."This is not the first time that Trump, the former star of reality TV and tabloids, has manufactured a melodrama that begins with bluster but often ends with a whimper.

Trump flirted with presidential runs in 1988 and 2000 before abandoning them. He offered to help rebuild the World Trade Center in 2004 but never followed through. And his embrace of birtherism, which questioned whether Obama was born in the United States and was eligible to become president, fueled his own political rise. He never produced any evidence.

"I think the president has played the media like a fiddle for two and a half years," said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

The pattern has continued since Trump's election.

On New Year's Eve, he claimed he knew "things that other people don't know" about foreign hacking of last year's election, and that the information would be revealed "on Tuesday or Wednesday." Those days came and went without an answer. In March, he tweeted the incendiary claim that he was wiretapped by his predecessor, a charge he's never supported.

"He follows the paradigm that no news is bad news," said Sam Nunberg, a former campaign aide. "He knows how to play to America's insatiable appetite not just for news but for drama and interest. He brought that to Washington."He's also brought trouble to his White House.

At a Senate committee hearing this month, Comey suggested that the president's reference to possible recordings inspired him to disclose to the media through an intermediary a memo he had written of their Oval Office conversation. In that meeting, according to the memo, Trump told Comey he hoped he would let the Flynn investigation go. Comey said he understood that to be a request to drop the probe.

One week after the memo was disclosed, the Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to take over the investigation into contacts between Russia and the Trump political campaign.

AP