Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has apologized to Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, for mocking his warning about the threat from Russia during the 2012 presidential election.
“The Romney people are living in a different century. Just the flat out statement to say that Russia is our biggest geopolitical problem is a 20th century concept. .. There is a kind of one or two dimensional view..”
— Madeleine Albright 9/6/2012
(clip concept h/t @jameshohmann pic.twitter.com/iPwY8LSzEA— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) February 26, 2019
When asked during the campaign which nation he considered the biggest geopolitical threat to the United States, the Republican nominee handed the honor to Russia. His Democratic rival, President Obama, sneered at the judgment in a presidential debate. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” he said. “The Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Albright, who served in the Bill Clinton administration, added to the Romney pile-on, saying at the time that he had “little understanding of what is actually going on in the 21st century.”
Now a co-chair of the Stimson Center’s Just Security 2020 program, Albright offered the apology in testimony to a House Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday on the rise of autocratic regimes throughout the world.
“I personally owe an apology to now-Senator Romney, because I think that we underestimated what was going on in Russia,” Albright said. “I was on the CIA external advisory board, there was no question that less money was being put into Russian language and what was going on in Russia.”
She testified that Russia continues to be a grave threat to U.S. interests.
“We had forgotten we’re dealing with a KGB agent,” she said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I think he has played a weak hand very well. Putin has put them back on the scene.
