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Attacked Trump Retreats: Putin Responsible for Meddling

Attacked Trump Retreats: Putin Responsible for Meddling
folder_openUnited States access_time5 years ago
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In an attempt to reduce wrath from his behavior and stances in Helsinki, US President Donald Trump blamed his Russian counterpart for meddling in his country’s Presidential elections.

Trump believed Vladimir Putin should be held responsible for alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election after all - since he is the president of Russia, Trump told CBS.

The network teased a quote from Trump ahead of airing his interview with CBS Evening News anchor Jeff Glor, which was broadcast at 6:30 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday. In it, Glor asks Trump if he would hold Putin personally culpable for the alleged election interference.

Trump said yes, although he apparently stopped short of actually blaming Putin for personally ordering an influence op, the way his opponents tend to.

“I would because he's in charge of the country just like I consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country," Trump said. "So certainly as the leader of the country you would have to hold him responsible.”

He also said he warned Putin against future meddling during their summit in Helsinki, Finland, on Monday.

"I let him know we can't have this. We're not going to have it. And that's the way it's going to be," Trump said.

Mainstream US media, Democratic politicians and not a few never-Trump Republicans joined in a chorus of condemnations after Trump did not use the press conference following the summit to publicly attack Putin the way they thought he should have.

The US president was accused of “siding with the KGB over the CIA” and betraying American democracy by not taking the assessment of US intelligence agencies at face value, rather than appearing to give equal weight to Putin’s “powerful” insistence that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election.

Facing the onslaught of criticism, Trump sought to clarify his remarks by telling reporters that when he said he saw no reason why Russia “would” interfere, he meant to say he saw no reason why it “wouldn’t” be Russia, which led to another media frenzy.

In the CBS interview, Trump praised his Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA chief Gina Haspel as “excellent” people. Asked if the intelligence agencies were out to get him, Trump said he had “full confidence” in the new leadership.

Coats, whom Trump called “a great patriot [who] loves this country,” has publicly endorsed the previous administration’s “intelligence community assessment” (ICA) published in January 2017, that accused Russia of using unspecified “active measures” to influence the election.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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