President Trump said Monday he is unsure whether he agrees with a recent warning from his own intelligence chief that U.S. cyber infrastructure has reached a “critical point” in its susceptibility to foreign attacks.
“I don’t know if I agree with that. I’d have to look, but I have a lot of respect for Dan. And that’s where he is and that’s what he does,” Trump told CBS News when asked about a series of comments Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats made at a conference in Washington last week.
Coats told members of the Hudson Institute the warning lights for a large-scale cyberattack against the U.S. are “blinking red,” and claimed Russia tops the list of “worst offenders” when it comes to malicious cyberactivity and attacks against foreign countries.
“What’s serious about the Russians is their intent. They have capabilities, but it’s their intent to undermine our basic values, undermine democracy, [and] create wedges between us and our allies.”
Trump also disagreed with U.S. intelligence reports on Monday that indicated Russia was behind a series of cyberattacks during the 2016 presidential election, and told reporters during a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin he didn’t see “any reason” why the Kremlin would have carried out such attacks.
[Opinion: Trump caves to Putin]
“You know, President Obama, he was the president for eight years. I’m relatively new. And a lot of bad things happened during his administration. I’m here for a very short period of time,” Trump told CBS when asked about the possibility of additional cyberattacks in the near future.
Coats issued a sternly worded statement shortly after Trump concluded the press conference and his first bilateral summit with Putin, which said the U.S. intelligence community has always provided “the best information and fact-based assessments possible for the president and policymakers.”
