‘It can’t work,’ Trump says of his own cyber security deal with Putin
After facing heavy backlash from ant-Russia figures within both Republican and Democratic parties, US President Donald Trump has backtracked on his cyber security deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did!” he tweeted on Sunday night.
The formation of an “impenetrable Cyber Security unit” between the US and Russia was the more controversial outcome of Trump’s first meeting with his Russian counterpart, which also included a ceasefire deal in southwest Syria.
Trump announced both agreements in a series of tweets early Sunday, two days after the much-anticipated meeting on the sidelines of the annual G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
As expected, the cyber security deal did not go down well with Republican bigwigs such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who described the agreement as a “dumb” idea.
"It's not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it's pretty close," he told NBC news.
Arizona Senator John McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, accused Putin of getting away with “literally trying to change the outcome ... of our election.”
Trump’s critics on both sides of the aisle have been pressuring him to go after Moscow over its alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential vote.
They have constantly accused Russia of running a series of high-profile cyber attacks to change the outcome of the November 8 election.
Some Democrats have taken the allegations to another level, saying Moscow directly intervened to help Trump win.
Former US defense secretary Ash Carter also took issue with the deal in an interview with the CNN, saying, "This is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary."
"If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow," said Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
The back and forth came after The Washington Post reported Saturday that “Russian government hackers” were behind a recent hack into business systems of US nuclear power and other energy companies.
Trump said Sunday that he addressed the issue in the meeting and Putin “vehemently denied” the hacking accusations.
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