Former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.), a 2020 presidential candidate, jabbed at President Trump on Sunday, saying that he trusts the U.S. intelligence committee over Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“All 17 national security agencies in the United States of America … are in unanimous agreement that Russia intentionally interfered in our elections,” Delaney said in response to a question about Russia’s election interference in the 2016 presidential race.
{mosads}“So I believe them over Putin, so I’ll start with that,” he said.
Delaney, speaking at a CNN town hall in Austin, Texas, accused Trump of not doing enough to harden the country’s elections systems against foreign interference.
“I wouldn’t believe Vladimir Putin just because he said he didn’t do it, which is what the current president is doing,” Delaney said.
“I would believe our intelligence agencies. I would make it clear to Russia that we have a zero tolerance policy as it relates to them interfering in our elections, but I would also make sure that our systems are hardened against cyberattacks generally, but against this attack, specifically, because it gets to the core functioning of our democracy,” he added.
Delaney’s comments came almost a month after former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe said Trump once dismissed intelligence on North Korea given to him by U.S. officials, telling them, “I don’t care, I believe Putin.”
Trump told officials in a meeting that he did not believe North Korean missiles could strike the U.S. mainland because Putin told him those missiles did not exist, according to McCabe.
“Intelligence officials in the briefing responded that that was not consistent with any of the intelligence our government possesses to which the president replied, ‘I don’t care. I believe Putin,’ ” McCabe said in February.