Meddle muddle
It’s opposite day for Trump on Russia
President Trump claimed Wednesday that Russia is no longer targeting the U.S., directly contradicting his top intelligence officials.
A White House spokeswoman tried to walk back Trump's comment — and the President himself then did a TV interview where he finally talked tough about Russia.
The roller coaster of positions comes amid uproar over remarks the President he made alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin where he cast doubts on U.S. intelligence agencies' findings the Kremlin's interfered in American elections.
Asked directly by a reporter before a cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday if Russia is still targeting the U.S., Trump responded with one word: “No.”
The terse, off-the-cuff response ran counter to the repeated warnings and statements made by some of Trump's top officials.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned state officials just this past Saturday that the threat from Russia targeting U.S. elections has not dissipated.
Nielsen said the U.S. intelligence community does “consistently observe malicious cyberactivity from various actors against U.S. election infrastructure.”
Nielsen's comments came a day after the Justice Department indicted 12 Russian intelligence agents as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Kremlin's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election. The dozen military members are accused of engaging in a “sustained effort” to hack Democrats' emails and computer networks.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also warned against the ongoing threat of cyberattacks from foreign powers, saying that the situation is at a “critical point.”
The U.S. is “not yet seeing the kind of electoral interference in specific states and in voter databases that we experienced in 2016” by the Kremlin, Coats said at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. “However, we realize we are just one click of the keyboard away from a similar situation repeating itself.”
On Tuesday, the President claimed he misspoke when he stood next to Putin and said he didn't “see any reason why it would be Russia” regarding 2016 election meddling, adding he meant to say “wouldn't.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed that Trump's “no” was not in response to a question about Russian interference — but rather to whether he would take more questions.
“He said ‘no' to answering questions,” Sanders said.
“The President and his administration are working very hard to make sure that Russia is unable to meddle in our election as they have done it the past,” she added, without ever saying that Trump does believe Russia poses a current threat. “We certainly believe that we are taking steps to make sure they can't do it again.”
Trump finally sounded tougher in an interview with CBS, claiming he'd told Putin of the meddling, “We're not going to have it, and that's the way it's going to be.”
Asked if he'd hold Putin personally responsible for further election interference, Trump said, “I would, because he's in charge of the country.”