Trump speaks harder, now says that he warned Putin about the interference

WASHINGTON: His harshness with Vladimir Putin in question, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he had told the Russian leader to stay out of the US elections "and that's how it's going pbad".

A few hours earlier, Trump answered "no" when asked if the long-time American enemy was still targeting the US elections. This response suddenly put the president at odds with recent public alerts on his own intelligence, but the White House quickly stepped in to say that his answer was not what it seemed to be.

At the end of the day, in an interview with CBS News, Trump was ready to give an undoubtedly powerful tone.

In Helsinki, on Monday's summit, he said, "I let him know that we can not have that, we will not have it, and that's how it's going to be. pbad.

Would he personally condemn Putin to another electoral interference? "I would, because he's in charge of the country."

The interview comes at the end of two days of shifting statements about whether Trump was in agreement with the findings of US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections that sent him to the White House. Trump now says, with apparent reluctance, that he agrees, but he continues to add that others may have also intervened.

On Tuesday, he delivered a scripted statement to "clarify" – his word – his public doubting US intelligence findings of Russian interference in the election to harm his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

His reservations, 18 months after his presidency and his position alongside Putin in foreign lands, have aroused strong criticism from him, including from reputable Republicans.

Then, on Wednesday, he was asked at a cabinet meeting whether Russia was still targeting the United States, and he replied "no" without specifying. This came days after the National Intelligence Director, Dan Coats, sounded the alarm, comparing the cyber threat to the way US authorities said before 9/11 that intelligence channels were blinking with signs. harbingers of an imminent terrorist attack.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later stated that Trump was actually saying "no" to additional questions – even though he later spoke to Russia.

"President is wrong," said Senator Susan Collins of Maine about Trump's one-word answer. Said that Sanders had since clarified, she replied, "There is a reversing of reverse gear from reverse to reverse, that is dizzying."
The bipartisan sentence of a longtime US foe in Helsinki, the US president said on Tuesday that he had made a mistake in stating that he saw no reason to believe that Russia had interfered with the United States in 2016. election.

"The sentence should have been," I do not see any reason why I would not do it, or why it would not be Russia "instead of" why it would be, "said Trump Tuesday comments that He had made in Helsinki, Ha had tweeted a half-dozen times and had participated in two television interviews since Putin's press conference, before correcting his remarks the next day, and the scripted cleanup only concerned the least defensible of his comments.

Trump refined and sharpened his presentation in other ways within two days from Helsinki.

At the press conference with Putin, he was asked if he would denounce what happened in 2016 and warned Putin never to do it again, and he did not say anything about it. not answered directly. Instead, he went into a long, rambling response, including his inquiries about the Clinton email server and his description of Putin's "extremely strong and powerful" interference denial.

Trump baderted Wednesday at the White House that no other US president has been so hard on Russia. He cited US sanctions and the expulsion of alleged US spies from the United States, telling reporters that Putin "understands him, and he is not happy about it".

Confused waters have compounded critics' concerns that Trump would not take the threats to the US electoral system seriously enough. Boosting the reasons why Trump has repeatedly missed opportunities to publicly condemn Putin's actions, Sanders suggested that Trump was working to make the most of an "opportunity" for both leaders of working together on shared interests.

Such an opportunity is what Trump called Putin's "incredible offer" to allow the United States to have access to Russians accused of electoral piracy and other interference. In exchange, Putin wants Russian interviews with Americans accused by the Kremlin of unspecified crimes.

Sanders said Trump was still weighing the offer with his team, adding, "We are committed to nothing." Russian officials said they want to interview Kremlin critics Bill Browder and former US ambbadador to Russia Michael McFaul. Legislators urged Trump to reject the deal.

"We are going to make sure that Congress does everything it can to protect this country," said Senator Cory Gardner, R-Colo, who heads the GOP campaign branch.

A number of senators quickly sign a bipartisan bill from Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., And Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Who would inflict further sanctions on Russia or any other country, false news or interfere with the electoral infrastructure.

Sanders characterized the legislation as "hypothetical" and declined to say whether the president would support it.

Van Hollen said that Trump "is not willing to protect the integrity of our democracy in the United States, so the Congress must act."

And two other legislators, Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., And Chris Coons, D-Del., Will attempt to force a vote on Thursday on a resolution supporting the intelligence community's findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections and must be held accountable. A similar vote Tuesday in the House failed on a party vote.

Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr of South Carolina, said that if Trump doubted that Russia would try again to intervene, "He needs to read the intelligence ".

At the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington on Friday, Coats said: "We still do not see the kind of voter interference in specific states and electoral databases that we experienced in 2016, however, we fully realize that we are just a click away on a keyboard away from a similar situation repeating itself. "

His comments came the same day that the Justice Department unveiled an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers for their role in hacking Democratic groups during the 2016 campaign.

"The president was completely wrong," said Michael Morell, former vice president and acting director of the CIA, about Trump's comments after the cabinet meeting. "The Russians continue to interfere in our democracy, in fact, they have never stopped."

Contrary to the fears of the US government before the 2016 presidential elections, piracy of the national electoral infrastructure seemed to be a betrayal to steal and divulge salacious documents from the campaign of the National Democratic Committee and Democratic Democrats to destabilize public opinion.

The success of the dress rehearsal is not a good omen for the upcoming election cycles in 2018 and 2020, as intelligence leaders have noted the growing and continuing threat of pirates of Russian nation-states.

Federal officials finally determined that at least 18 states had their electoral systems targeted in one way or another, and up to 21 found a scan of their networks for any vulnerabilities, according to a report released in May by the Senate.