President Biden issued a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin after a U.S. intelligence report found that the country meddled in the 2020 U.S. election.
A report published on Tuesday by the intelligence community, which is a declassified version of the one provided to then-President Donald Trump and other officials on Jan. 7, assessed that the Kremlin aimed to hurt Biden, although they did not manipulate any of the election results, U.S. officials determined.
In a sit-down interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that aired Wednesday, the president responded to the report saying, “He will pay a price. We had a long talk, he and I. I know him relatively well, and the conversation started off, I said, ‘I know you, and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.'”
Putin authorized Russian government organizations to conduct operations “denigrating” Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party while supporting Trump, the report said. But “unlike in 2016,” U.S. intelligence officials said they “did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure.” The report said officials had “high confidence” in this assessment.
The report also revealed that stories about Hunter Biden were “heavily amplified” by Russia throughout the 2020 election cycle. It does not say any report about Hunter Biden was fabricated by the Kremlin, but rather they were spread with the help of a Russian government effort aimed at “denigrating” the elder Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party in favor of Trump.
In reference to his 2011 comment to Putin that the Russian leader doesn’t have a soul, Biden said, “I did say that to him, and his response was we understand one another. I wasn’t being a wise guy. I was alone with him in his office. That’s how it came about. It was when President Bush had said I’ve looked in his eyes and saw his soul. I said, ‘I looked in your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.’ He looked back and said, ‘We understand each other.’ Look, the most important thing in dealing with foreign leaders, in my experience, and I’ve dealt with an awful lot of them over my career, is just know the other guy.”
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Biden affirmed that he believes Putin “is a killer,” reiterating that he’s “going to pay,” but he chose not to elaborate.
