Sen. Blumenthal on WaPo-Trump Report: ‘President Needs and Deserves to Face Objective Reality’

By Aidan McLaughlinDec 15th, 2017, 8:07 am
 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal appeared on CNN Friday morning and reacted to The Washington Post’s report out this week detailing President Donald Trump’s reluctance to accept U.S. intelligence on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

“The president has resisted the objective reality that Russia meddled in the 2016 election,” the Democratic senator started. “In fact he’s firmly rejected any suggestion that Russia attacked our democracy, which plainly it did.”

“It impairs our ability to resist and stop this kind of meddling interference in the future. It is a real national security threat, and Russia will repeat it, unless they are made to play a price.”

CNN’s Alisyn Camerota then brought up a stunning anecdote from the WaPo story that reported intelligence officials omit information on Russia from the daily intel briefing because it upsets the president.

“Is Congress comfortable with that?” Camerota asked.

“I’m certainly not comfortable with it,” Blumenthal replied. “The President needs and deserves to face objective reality, which is: Russia is a threat to our democracy. Putin is, forgive me, a KGB thug.”

“The fact that the intelligence briefers are failing to provide the president with an objective and comprehensive view of the world — simply because he’s infuriated by the suggestion that Russia supported him in the last election, and may have contributed to his victory — is very, very dangerous.”

Watch above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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Aidan McLaughlin is the Editor in Chief of Mediaite. Send tips via email: aidan@mediaite.com. Ask for Signal. Follow him on Twitter: @aidnmclaughlin