Obama stands by intelligence conclusion that Russia tried to influence 2016 election
Obama was hitting back at a report released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on July 18, which claimed to demonstrate how the former president and his national security Cabinet had 'manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup' against Donald Trump after he had defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Trump earlier in the day also accused Obama of 'treason' during an Oval Office meeting with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, calling him a 'ringleader' and his actions 'seditious.'
Obama's office dismissed the claims as another example of the constant "nonsense and misinformation" that emanates out of the White House.
'Nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes," Obama's office said in a statement on July 22. 'These findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, led by then-Chairman Marco Rubio.'
Rubio currently serves as Trump's Secretary of State.
The U.S. intelligence community in 2017 said Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections and sought to hurt Clinton, who was Trump's Democratic opponent, while trying to help Trump.
Obama's office added: 'Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.'
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who released the report, said the intelligence community's assessment was "politicized intelligence that was used as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump's victory."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez becomes the first Democrat to enter the 2026 governor race
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Democratic Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, a former emergency room nurse, announced Friday that she is running for governor, the day after the incumbent decided against seeking a third term. Rodriguez is the first Democrat to officially enter the 2026 race. Several others are considering running after Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday he was bowing out. Wisconsin's 2026 governor's race is open with no incumbent running for the first time since 2010. Rodriguez, who almost certainly will face numerous Democratic primary opponents, has vowed to push back against Republican President Donald Trump's administration. 'We've got a maniac in the White House,' Rodriguez said in a campaign launch video. 'His tariffs are killing our farmers and his policies are hurting our kids.' Rodriguez has been lieutenant governor since 2023, after previously serving one two-year term in the state Assembly representing suburban Milwaukee, where she lives. She won a seat that had been under Republican control for years. Rodriguez emphasized her background working previously as a nurse in a Baltimore emergency room, saying she wanted to continue Evers' emphasis on fighting to protect reproductive freedom, invest in public schools and rebuild the economy. She noted that the state Legislature is within reach of Democratic control, meaning that with a Democratic governor, they could finally enact policies Republicans have blocked for years like expanding Medicaid. A registered nurse, Rodriguez previously worked as a health care executive and an epidemic intelligence service officer with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has a master's degree in public health. Rodriguez emphasized the importance of health care, including protecting abortion rights, in a brief speech she delivered on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last year. Rodriguez, who is married with two children, launched her candidacy on her 50th birthday. In her first run for office in 2020, when she was elected to the Legislature, Rodriguez said she was motivated to get into politics because of how Republicans handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Rodriguez won the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor in 2022 after then-Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who held the office in Evers' first term, decided to run for the Senate. Barnes, who lost that race to Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, is among several Democrats considering a run for governor next year. Others include Attorney General Josh Kaul, state Sen. Kelda Roys, Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. On the Republican side, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and suburban Milwaukee businessman Bill Berrien are the only announced candidates. Others, including U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and state Senate President Mary Felzkowski, are considering it. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
5 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jewish Tacoma candidate opposed by PAC backing ‘interests of Jewish community'
With funding coming largely from outside Tacoma, a political action committee that backs candidates who 'support the interests of the Jewish community' is spending thousands of dollars to oppose a candidate in Tacoma's District 5 City Council race. The PAC, called Washingtonians for a Brighter Future, spent $15,000 on mail and postage to send flyers opposing Cook to voters of District 5, and another $1,000 on text messages with the same goal. The group, according to a substack article linked on its website, is endeavoring to 'oppose hate in all forms' by elevating or opposing candidates at the local level who could move up to national positions. It's modeled after a California-based PAC called California Against Hate, which in 2022 worked to oppose a city council candidate in San Diego who was 'anti-Israel,' according to the article. 'Many of the most dangerous people crop up in the small cities,' Jared Sclar, co-founder of the California-based PAC, said of the Washington PAC in the substack article. 'If there is someone problematic, we may not know. We may not know someone is going to sneak by and get on the city council, and then they're the next Ilhan Omar,' Sclar wrote of Omar, a Democratic U.S. representative from Minnesota. Cook said she wasn't surprised to see such opposition to her campaign. 'I think these are the kind of hurdles that are very common when it comes to trying to win people-powered campaigns against corporate interests,' Cook told The News Tribune. The mail campaign came around mid-July, ahead of the Aug. 5 primary election that will whittle the slate of three candidates for the District 5 race down to two. Cook has raised the most money in the race so far at $47,012.98. Incumbent Joe Bushnell raised $35,744.14, and candidate Brandon A. Vollmer raised $851.03. The PAC as of July 24 raised $32,768.09 this year, only $1,000 of which came from a donor with a Tacoma address. The rest came from donors in Washington cities like Mercer Island, Seattle and Medina. At least one contributor listed an address in Naples, Florida. According to the Washington Public Disclosure Commission, the PAC spent $18,076.61 by July 24, $16,000 of which paid for the campaign against Cook. The mailers that the PAC distributed depicted her standing in front of a building with broken windows with graffiti that reads 'don't burn' and 'ppl live upstairs' overlaid with text that stated, 'Zev Cook cooking up chaos for Tacoma.' It also implied that Cook supported defunding the police and stated that doing so would result in increased crime, gang violence and home invasions. Cook, a community organizer and activist, has the backing of groups like the Tacoma and Pierce County Democratic Socialists of America, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 3000, and the Washington Education Association's PAC. Incumbent Joe Bushnell, who is running for re-election, has the endorsement of several state representatives, current and former council members, and the Tacoma Police Union, International Union of Police Associations Local 6. Bushnell also has Washingtonians for a Better Future's endorsement. 'Council Member Bushnell is a friend of the Jewish community,' the PAC's website reads. Bushnell said he didn't solicit an endorsement from the PAC but said he wasn't surprised to see the group oppose Cook, given her support from the Democratic Socialists of America. 'The groups that are supporting my opponent have very public rhetoric that rubs a lot of folks the wrong way,' Bushnell told The News Tribune. Cook, who is Jewish, said she feels the group is going after her because of her vocal support of Palestine. 'I'm the only candidate running for city council this year that's made public comments in support of Palestine and against genocide, in alignment with my Jewish values of community repair and justice,' she told The News Tribune. 'I think this is very similar in some ways, but certainly at a smaller scale, to the attack ads that were run against Zohran [Mamdani] for being a pro-Palestine candidate that he is continuing to be,' she said of Mamdani, who recently won the Democratic primary in New York City's mayoral race. 'But like Zohran I'm intending to win by continuing to just focus on how we make life better for working people in our city.' Nevet Basker, the PAC's co-chair, told The News Tribune the group is seeking to combat antisemitism and said it was Cook's 'rhetoric against Zionism' that the PAC opposes. 'We believe that the rhetoric in some of these campaigns, including Zev Cook, creates a permission structure for antisemitism that results in issues in our own communities, in Tacoma, in this case, where the Jewish community feels unwelcome and sometimes unsafe,' Basker told The News Tribune. Basker said the PAC's concerns also go beyond those of the Jewish community, to what she described as Cook's support for abolishing the police and prisons. 'She's also a leader of an organization that advocates for abolishing prisons and all incarceration releasing, even violent criminals, murderers, rapists, back into our communities,' Basker said. 'We believe that that is unsafe for everyone.' Cook, according to her website, has served as an officer for the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America. The group also endorsed her in the District 5 race. The Democratic Socialists of America's political platform calls for the 'abolition of the carceral state.' 'For all of the working class to achieve collective liberation we must constrain, diminish, and abolish the carceral forces of the state — from prisons and police themselves, to their manifestations in all forms throughout society,' the platform reads. Cook told The News Tribune that she doesn't think that defunding the police 'is a very good framework for understanding public policy' and instead supports specific policies like increasing funding for Tacoma's non-police crisis response team. 'Generally, I think that we as a community need to be focused more on not just addressing the symptoms, but addressing root causes when it comes to crime, which is why our platform is so focused on addressing income and housing inequality in our community,' Cook said. She said she wasn't surprised to see the PAC's efforts to oppose her campaign and said the group wouldn't have sent out the mailer if they didn't think Cook had a real shot at winning. Some commenters on Reddit said that the anti-Cook flyer made them want to vote for her even more. 'Getting an attack ad like this just tells me that they've seen how effective our campaign has been at mobilizing the support of working class Tacomans,' she added. 'It tells me that they're scared that we might win this year.' Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
7 minutes ago
- The Hill
Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term
Six months into his second term, President Trump and Republicans are in better shape than eight years ago. Unquestionably, President Trump remains a divisive political figure. However, he has expanded his base and continues to hold it. In contrast, Democrats have been unable to capitalize on Trump's political vulnerabilities and have lost ground compared to 2017. With the House's passage of his rescission package, Trump scored another major win. He has had many, both at home and abroad: a successful strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, enactment of the ' big, beautiful ' budget reconciliation bill, a multitude of favorable Supreme Court decisions, DOGE's cuts, closing the border and deportations. Trump is doing what he promised. His base should be pleased. It is a striking contrast from 2017 when he had a much more mixed record: enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but an Obamacare fiasco. However, while today's accomplishments play well to his base, how is Trump doing overall? The answer is important because Republicans took a beating in 2018's midterm elections, Democrats gaining 41 seats in the House and the majority. Trump's ability to pass legislation was derailed, his administration was continually dogged by House investigations and he was impeached twice. Trump remains divisive. That hasn't changed and clearly never will. Six months after his inauguration, according to the July 20 RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump's net job approval rating was minus-6.6 percentage points. His average approval rating of 45.5 percent is 4.4 percentage points below his share of the 2024 popular vote. However, Trump is well ahead of where he was at roughly the same point in his first term. On July 19, 2017, Trump was at minus-16 percentage points in his job approval: 39.7-55.7 percent. Further, Trump's current job approval-disapproval rating is 50 to 48 percent in Real Clear Politics' only poll (Rasmussen) of likely voters — which is tied with his share of 2024's popular vote. Trump's comparatively favorable showing is carrying over to congressional Republicans. In the July 22 RealClearPolitics average of national generic congressional vote polling, Democrats lead by 3 percentage points. To put this into historical context, we can look back at the earliest generic vote polls in July of the even years before each of the last six congressional elections, Democrats led in all six, yet the subsequent elections were a different story. Democrats lost either House or Senate seats in five of those elections. Looking more closely at today, the Democrats' average lead in likely voter generic polls (Rasmussen and Cygnal) — again the ones who matter most — Democrats' average lead is just 2.5 percentage points. A lot has changed in eight years. back in 2017, Trump's 2016 presidential victory was still being dismissed by some — including some Republicans — as a fluke, a factor of Hillary Clinton's weakness more than his strength. Not so much this time. Trump's 2024 victory was decisive and even quite impressive, considering the obstacles he faced — including but not limited to Democrats' lawfare, two assassination attempts and a concertedly negative establishment media. In office, Trump looked less in control, especially early on. Congressional Republicans reflected this and appeared to be in disarray, as exemplified by their failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The results reflected this — particularly their loss of 42 House seats in 2018. Of course, there are caveats about projecting too much from such an early look ahead to 2026. Today's generic numbers come from a much more greater number of polls than had been taken in some of those six previous elections. Republicans' numbers could yet slide. But they could also improve. Trump's approval ratings could slide too. But the same upside potential applies here as well. Invariably, there will be more polling of likely voters as the 2026 election nears — again, the ones that count (or rather, vote) — among whom Trump has historically outperformed among them. Many new issues will arise in the year and a half before 2026's midterms. Yet none may be larger than the negative one on Democrats' horizon: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's nomination as their candidate for mayor of New York City. Should Mamdani win, he will draw attention away from Trump and onto a set of controversial policies and positions that many Americans view as extreme. He will also exacerbate fissures among Democrats. Although Trump is divisive, he is not dividing his base. And Trump's base is far bigger than it was eight years ago. Democrats are not capitalizing on Trump's divisiveness. They remain leaderless and look more divided than Republicans. J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.
