California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, blasted President Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin.
California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, blasted President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“How can we really believe that the president pressed Putin hard when only the day before he was denying whether we really knew that Russia was responsible, ” Schiff asked rhetorically during a Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union .
“What kind of a tough negotiator, and this is the way the president like to portray himself, goes into a negotiation, betraying his own position a day before, calling into question the probity of his own intelligence agencies?” Schiff asked host Dana Bash. “That just doesn’ t make any sense.”
Schiff played off of Trump’s best selling book, “The Art Of The Deal, ” in a Sunday morning tweet.
No art to this deal: What kind of “tough negotiator” goes into talks undermining his country’s own position, as you did attacking US intel? https: //t.co/sHTa9mmy2J
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) July 9,2017
Schiff also criticized Trump for suggesting that Russia could be a partner in combating cyber security. The president said that he discussed with Putin the possibility of cooperation with Russia on an “impenetrable Cyber Security” unit.
Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9,2017
Schiff called the idea “dangerously naive.”
“If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow, ” he said.
Democrats weren’ t the only ones criticizing the idea of cooperating with Russia on cyber security. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham both blasted the idea Sunday. (RELATED: Graham Blasts Trump For Suggesting Cooperation With Russia)
Schiff has been a vocal critic of the president, emerging as one of the strongest opposition voices in Congress.
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