Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said President Donald Trump was empowering Putin by not imposing tougher sanctions on Russia for cyber attacks on the American election of 2016 which would be “betraying democracy.”
Graham said, “He had what I think is a disastrous meeting with President Putin. Two hours and 15 minutes of meetings, Tillerson and Trump are ready to forgive and forget when it comes to cyber attacks on the American election of 2016. Nobody is saying, Mr. President, the Russians changed the outcome. You won fair and square, but they did try to attack our election system. They were successful in many ways. And the more you do this, the more people are suspicious about you and Russia. He’s got a great national security team around him. He’s doing a good job in Afghanistan, North Korea, and ISIL, but when it comes to Russia, he’s got a blind spot, and to forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyber attacks is to empower Putin, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.”
He continued, “He seems to be willing to forgive and forget Putin. Even if he brought it up, he’s not willing to do anything about it, so it makes me more committed than ever to get sanctions on President Trump’s desk punishing Putin. There is only one person in Washington that I know of that has any doubt about what Russia did in our election, and that’s President Trump.”
He added, “When it comes to Russia, I am dumbfounded, I am disappointed, and at the end of the day he’s hurting his presidency by not embracing the fact that Putin is a bad guy who tried to undercut our democracy and he’s doing it all over the world.”
Discussing sanctions on Russia, Graham added, “At the end of the day, the house needs to pass a bill. If you don’t like our bill word for word, you can change it, but I’m not going to gut the bill. I am intent on punishing the Russians for interfering in our election. They did it in France. They’re going to do it in Germany. They’re doing it all over the world. They’re doing it in the Balkan states, their neighbors. So I want a clear message to Russia that you’ll pay the price for cutting our democracy. If President Trump doesn’t embrace this, I think he’ll be empowering the Russians and betraying democracy.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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