The Slatest

Trump Still Isn’t Sure Whether Russia Meddled in U.S. Presidential Election

President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin hold a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017.  

AFP/Getty Images

The consensus of the country’s intelligence agencies—and even his own national security advisers—are apparently not enough to convince President Donald Trump, who still isn’t quite sure whether Russia tried to interfere in the U.S. presidential race. “He called me from Air Force One and he basically said to me, ‘Hey, you know, maybe they did do it, maybe they didn’t do it’,” the new White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, said on CNN. Apparently Trump still likes to say that if Russians really were responsible for the hacks of the Democratic National Committee no one would have found out about it because they would not have gotten caught.

Scaramucci went on to criticize the media for continuing to pursue the story. “What are you guys suggesting?” he asked. “You’re going to delegitimize his victory?” No one should worry about the president being lenient on Moscow, Scaramucci added, noting that as he makes up his mind about whether Russia tried to meddle in the election he will act. “A person that’s going to be super, super tough on Russia is President Donald J. Trump,” Scaramucci said.

The new White House communications chief also dismissed any concerns about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. “The kid took a nothing meeting,” he said of the president’s 39-year-old son. “It was a non-event.”

Scaramucci also declined to state whether Trump will attempt to veto legislation that would impose new sanctions on Russia, and curtail the president’s abilities to lift them without the approval of Congress. “You’ve got to ask President Trump that,” he said on CNN. “It’s my second or third day on the job. My guess is he’s going to make that decision shortly.”

On another Sunday talk show though, it sounded like Trump had already made a decision to sign the bill. “The administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was promoted to press secretary on Friday, said on ABC’s This Week. “The original piece of legislation was poorly written, but we were able to work with the House and Senate, and the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary and we support where the legislation is now.”