President Donald Trump is dismissing the threat of Russian interference in the 2020 election because he's too "obsessed" with himself, Sen. Mark Warner said Thursday while urging Americans to take former special counsel Robert Mueller's testimony about Russian influence as a "warning."
"This president seems so obsessed about his own personal well-being that he dismisses this threat," the Virginia Democrat told "CBS This Morning." "When he goes to a G-20 meeting and makes light of this issue with Vladimir Putin, he does not make our nation safer."
Warner said it's up the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to push for comprehensive legislation on foreign influences, but he's not sure Trump is interested.
"Where we've been focused is the point that Bob Mueller made repeatedly yesterday, not only did Russia attack us in 2016, but they will be back in 2020," Warner said. "I've got no interest in re-litigating 2016. I am interested in making sure that we have appropriate protections in 2020."
Mueller testified that "many more countries" are interested in interfering with the upcoming election, and that he expects Russia to continue its actions.
"I would hope that every American, I don't care where you fall on the partisan scale, would take that as a warning and recognize that same message is coming out of Donald Trump's own director of the FBI, Chris Wray, it's coming out of Trump's own Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and this ought to be a national security issue," Warner said.
Warner, the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it is winding up its own probe into Russian interference but has not yet gotten access to "reams of counterintelligence evidence."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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