Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says in a new interview that the Trump administration has not been “successful” in its efforts to improve U.S. relations with Russia’s government due to “malign” activities performed by Russia.
In an excerpt of an interview set to air Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Pompeo said that there were a “handful” of areas around the world where U.S. and Russian interests overlap, but that cooperation with Russia is difficult due to strained relations.
{mosads}”It’s most unfortunate, because there are places where we have shared interests,” Pompeo says in the video. “I worked with them on counterterrorism, there’s a handful of other places around the world where we do have overlapping interests.”
Pompeo added that the Trump administration was “trying to push back against Russia’s malign activity around the world,” and added that President Trump has tried his own efforts to cool relations with the Cold War superpower.
“The president’s tried to develop a relationship and change that, but we’ve not been successful,” he said.
Pompeo’s comments follow an announcement last month of the administration’s decision to implement a new set of sanctions over the country’s most recent international controversy: the poisoning of an ex-spy on British soil, along with his daughter, earlier this year.
The U.S., along with Britain, France and Germany, issued a joint statement in March blaming Russia for the attack.
“We share the United Kingdom’s assessment that there is no plausible alternative explanation, and note that Russia’s failure to address the legitimate request by the government of the United Kingdom further underlines Russia’s responsibility,” the governments said at the time.
Trump himself brought up the potential of future election interference by Russia in July, but seemed to indicate that Vladimir Putin’s government would seek to aid Democrats this election cycle, despite their 2016 efforts to damage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
“I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!” he tweeted in July.