Trump Finally Addresses Russian Meddling in Mid-Terms: ‘We’ll Counteract Whatever They Do’

It took forever for President Donald Trump to acknowledge and addressed Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Now, he’s even discussing countermeasures for the 2018 midterms.

“Certainly there was meddling [by Russia] and probably from other countries and maybe other individuals,” Trump said during joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven. “And I think you have to be really watching very closely. You don’t want your system of votes to be compromised in any way. And we won’t allow that to happen.

“We’re doing a very deep study and coming out with some I think very strong suggestions on the ’18 election.”

The president then predictably prattled on about how “good” the economy is and how “well” the country was doing, but was quickly asked again about the issue of Russia.

“No. We’ll counteract whatever they do. We’ll counteract it very strongly,” Trump replied. “And we have back-up systems and we haven’t been given credit to this but we’re working very hard on the ’18 election and the ’20 election coming up.”

Prime Minister Lovfen was asked if he and Trump were on the same page.

“Well, we both agree that the result of the election in the country should be decided but nobody else but the voters in that country,” Lofven said. “And that is also our clear stance and that’s why our intelligence agencies are now increased in their own capacity to detect and counter, whether it is hacker attacks or financing or producing or spreading propaganda,” he added, possibly in reference to the 13 Russian individuals who were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for creating and disseminating political propaganda on social media.

“Any foreign power that can interfere with our election, we will find out and we will call them out very clearly,” Lovfen concluded. “Loud.”

Watch above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]