Thursday during his weekly media conference call, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) criticized President Donald Trump for comments he made earlier in the week during a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
Jones expressed his disappointment in Trump, and described his handling of the situation as a “great disservice to this country.”
“I was stunned at his comments,” Jones said. “I was disappointed in his comments. I think his retractions have caused more confusion than they have cleared things up. There was not much confusion about what he said in that press conference. And his expressions and his mannerisms – he does a great disservice to this country when he sides with Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence community. I know he’s tried to walk that back. But when he had an opportunity to look this guy in the eye and say, ‘Stay out,’ and, ‘You’re wrong. We know. We got evidence that you interfered with our elections,’ he did a great disservice to this country.”
Jones argued Trump was focused on the wrong aspects of the Russian interference and urged him not to take the claims “so personal.”
“One of the problems that I’m seeing, and I think this is really important – the president is focused on the allegations of collusion,” Jones added. “That’s not the problem here. You know, that’s just not the issue. What’s an issue – what’s a serious, serious issue and a threat to this country is the interference with our electoral process that every intelligence in the United States says it happened in 2016. It’s going to happen again. And as long, and until the president acknowledges all of this – not in a backtracking way, but affirmatively really strong and puts the resource into it, we’re going to have another problem.”
He continued, “And, I really wish the president would not take this so personal. And he is taking it personal, as an affront to his election, which is just being the president of the United States. He won this election. He needs to have this bully pulpit. This is not about the past. This is about the future. And so I was really disappointed. I was not at all – did not at all feel any comfort whatsoever with his efforts to walk back the very clear things that he has said. And then even in his expression in Helsinki.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and is the editor of Breitbart TV.
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