Vice President Joe Biden said that President-Elect Donald Trump hasn’t done enough to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C., and “may sink” as a result.
“I don’t think he’s done enough. And he may sink in the swamp. Now, if you don’t drain it, you sink in it,” Biden said during an interview on Thursday with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell just hours before Barack Obama surprised him by bestowing him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Trump repeatedly used the term “drain the swamp,” to reference eliminating the nation’s capital of career politicians and bureaucrats whom he asserted don’t have the best interest of Americans in mind when making important decisions.
Mitchell also asked Biden about a controversial tweet Trump sent on Wednesday, in which he asked if we were living in Nazi Germany because he believed the U.S. intelligence community had allowed a sensitive document to leak to the media.
“It’s really, really unfortunate,” Biden said. “Look, Mr. Putin, among others, but primarily, is spending all his time since he came back as president trying to convince the rest of the world that America’s weak. It’s not in control of its own assets, that, basically saying to other parts of the world, ‘Look, you can’t count on America. They’re not reliable.’ You should be changing your– your attitude here.”
He continued: “It hurts our intelligence community. And look, a lot of people, you know, Andrea, are risking their lives. They’re not just sitting behind a computer. They’re risking their lives to get information that is essential for our physical security. And — I just hope to Lord, these people who know more get around him quicker than they have.”