Or, you know, you could be a stand up person and be genuinely contrite.
He's a big time CEO and his company is impacted by how well he handles it. So of course there are PR/crisis people around. They specialize in making psychopaths look human.
But leaders are where they are because they make good decisions - their character does matter. Calling in the image-fixer types to clean up your mistakes is easy mode.
Being seduced by a foreign agent was neither a good decision, nor evidence of good character, nor proof of situational awareness.
Can we assume this was a one-off because she was uniquely persistent and persuasive?
Yes, total failure on many counts. But when called to answer for it, you can respond like a flawed human or you can have a pr crisis firm present you as a bland corporate robot who says things like “if anyone was offended I apologize” or “we’re going to investigate how this happened.”
I think his answer was solid and seemed genuine. Doesn’t mean I think he’s got good judgment generally, but at least this was not a shitty thing to say.