Kamala Harris Calls Out Trump’s Refusal to Challenge Russian Misconduct: ‘It Don’t Smell Right’
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) called out President Donald Trump for his refusal to publicly push back on and challenge instances of Russian misconduct, including the claim that Russia funded bounties for Taliban-linked killings of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
During a long segment on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House, Harris acknowledged to host Nicolle Wallace that the repeated pattern of Trump dismissing threats or antagonistic actions by Russia, such as publicly siding with President Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence community and dismissing the news of Russia-Taliban bounty killings as a “hoax,” indicated “something’s afoot.”
“I want to come back one more time to the Russia bounty crisis,” Wallace said to Harris, “because I want to ask you how Americans should feel about it.”
“The way that I think about it is this,” Harris said. “There has been so much that has been happening in our country that has focused us inward, but we cannot lose sight of our nation’s standing in relationship to the rest of the world and the importance of having a commander in chief who takes seriously our role.”
“What are people to make, as they’re trying to process the fact that we have another scandal involving Donald Trump with Russia at its punch line?” Wallace asked moments later.
“He’s got something going on there. Let’s just be honest about it,” a slightly confounded Harris said and then broke into laughter. “Something’s afoot, right? It just … don’t smell right. I don’t know what it is.”
“You think?” Wallace agreed, laughing.
“But if you’re just reading the paper and all you know is that the intelligence community had to hide this intel in plain sight, in the [Presidential Daily Brief],” Wallace followed up. “They had to hide something in plain sight, because it said something potentially bad, a lead about cold war-like Russian covert lethal actions designed to kill Americans and Donald Trump is calling it a hoax, how are we supposed to feel about that?”
“The same way we should have felt from day one when he called Russian interference, when he had called the coronavirus, a hoax,” Harris said. “We’re supposed to feel the same way, which is, this man is not fit to be president and we need a new president. That’s how we’re supposed to feel. Let’s not overanalyze Donald Trump. I literally, no more pop psychology about this guy. Let’s just do what needs to get done, which is to put our efforts into the election that is coming up and elect a president who actually understands the magnitude and the importance of that office.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
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