President Donald Trump came under immense pressure this week to clarify his stance on Russian meddling and U.S. intelligence reports after a high-stakes summit with President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helenski, Finland.
Trump has now clarified his stance several times on the issue after a firestorm over his comments at the joint presser with Putin were seen as weak on the issue of Russian interference. Trump stated that he does believe intelligence findings on Russian interference during the election and told reporters at the White House Wednesday that “there’s been no president ever as tough as I have been on Russia.”
To further counter the narrative that he is weak on Russia, Trump tweeted an older interview of Hillary Clinton, presumably from her time as Secretary of State. “We want a strong Russia,” Clinton says in the clip: “A strong, confident, prosperous, stable Russia is in the interest of the world.”
Will the Dems and Fake News ever learn? This is classic! pic.twitter.com/kSX3ROI4QG
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2018
Clinton and other members of the Obama administration were accused of being soft on Russia while in office. Clinton famously gave Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov a red reset button. Her staff misspelled the word reset in Russian.