Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said it bothers him President Donald Trump has not condemned Russia for meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Partial transcript as follows:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGUS KING: My problem is, I talk to people in Maine who say the whole thing is a witch hunt and it’s a hoax because the president told me. We cannot confront this threat, which is a serious one, with a whole of government response when the leader of the government continues to deny that it exists.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Senator, that was on Tuesday. We got the Mueller indictments Friday. The president has Tweeted about the Mueller indictments 13 times since Friday, including five times this morning, and not once, sir, has he condemned Russia. Does that bother you?
LANKFORD: It does, because Russia’s clearly tried to advance their agenda into the United States. The president’s been very adamant to say he didn’t collude. He’s very frustrated that people seem to accuse the fact that the only reason he’s president is because of some sort of Russian collusion, but I would say the clear message here is Russia did mean to interfere in our election, in whatever way that might be, starting as far back as 2014, where they were planning, organizing, coordinating among other Russians to be able to make sure that they are trying to get out chaos into our elections system.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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