Two reporters who doubted 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s assertion that Russia was the greatest geopolitical threat to the U.S. have stated they were wrong.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman expressed her regret on Friday via Twitter.
“Romney described Russia as the greatest US geopolitical foe in his 2012 presidential campaign, and was broadly mocked. I was among reporters who should have given it more weight,” she tweeted.
Additional context – Romney described Russia as the greatest US geopolitical foe in his 2012 presidential campaign, and was broadly mocked. I was among reporters who should have given it more weight. https://t.co/slHeAMmcoy
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 19, 2019
Ronan Farrow, an investigative reporter with The New Yorker and a former aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, retweeted Haberman, admitting that he did not acknowledge Romney’s foresight on Russia and the intent the Russian government had on harming the U.S. through strategic cyberinfluence.
“I’ll join this mea culpa. I aired interviews with Romney where I completely failed to grasp how prescient he was being about Russia,” he tweeted.
I’ll join this mea culpa. I aired interviews with Romney where I completely failed to grasp how prescient he was being about Russia. https://t.co/LVXewv2pOP
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) April 20, 2019
Romney became one of the first GOP lawmakers to criticize Trump in the wake of Mueller’s report, saying Friday he was sickened and appalled by the behavior of Trump and those in his campaign, particularly how those working for the campaign welcomed help from Russia.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright apologized to Romney at a congressional hearing earlier this year, adding that Romney’s analysis on Russia’s impact on the U.S. was correct.
“I personally owe an apology to now-Sen. 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.”
The comments on Romney refer to a foreign policy discussion between the Republican candidate and President Barack Obama in the first presidential debate in 2012. When asked which nation he considered the biggest geopolitical threat to the United States, the Republican nominee named Russia. His Democratic rival, 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.”
While the Mueller report released on Thursday showed that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Russians, Mueller’s investigation made it clear that Russia did try to manipulate the result of the election, through the deliberate dissemination of false information on social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
