Trump’s Mixed Messages on Russian Meddling
President Donald Trump thanked Fox News for airing a montage on July 19 that he said showed “Trump recognized Russian Meddling MANY TIMES.” But the video also shows Trump equivocating on the issue, saying, “I think it was probably other people and/or countries.” And he has made other comments questioning whether Russia interfered in the 2016 elections.
In fact, the president on July 22 tweeted that the Russia investigation was “all a big hoax.”
We’ll go through the president’s statements on the matter since January 2017, including the full context of comments used in the Fox News montage.
Trump has acknowledged numerous times that he believes U.S. intelligence officials who concluded Russians interfered in the 2016 election, but he has often tempered those statements with other comments like, “Nobody really knows for sure.”
In discussing the issue, Trump has branded intelligence officials who led the investigation early on “political hacks,” or in the case of former FBI director James Comey, “a liar.” He has pointed out that the intelligence agencies have gotten things wrong in the past, such as whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
He has repeatedly noted that Putin vehemently denies Russian interference, and, Trump said, “I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.”
Trump also said that someone who told him “if they [Russians] were involved, you wouldn’t have found
