President Obama said the United States will respond to Russian cyber attacks and he has spoken to Vladimir Putin directly about the situation.
“I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action. And we will,” Obama said in an interview with NPR conducted in the White House on Thursday.
Obama said the action might be “publicized” and some of it might be kept private.
“Mr. Putin is well aware of my feelings about this because I spoke to him directly about it,” Obama said. “Among the big powers, there has been a traditional understanding that everybody is trying to gather intelligence on everybody else.”
President-elect Donald Trump recently told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that the CIA’s conclusion that Russia intervened to help him win the election is just “another excuse.”
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Trump said. “I don’t believe it. I don’t know why and I think it’s just, you know, they talked about all sorts of things. Every week it’s another excuse. We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College … No I don’t believe that at all.”
Check out the video above.