Biden: Trump undermining US intelligence officials

Vice President Biden in an interview on Sunday suggested that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s questioning of Russia’s involvement in the hacking of Democrats undermines the U.S. intelligence community. 

{mosads}Trump has dismissed the more than a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies that have confirmed that recent hacks targeting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign came from Russia.

“Think about what that says to the rest of the world,” Biden said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“Here, the intelligence community of the United States government, the most — the most potent military in the world, with the most significant intelligence capability in the world says flatly, ‘We know it was out of Russia. And we know it was [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,’ or, ‘We know it was the Russians.’ And a candidate for president who already is fawning over Putin says, ‘Well, how do they know?’ “

“What does — what does that — what does that do to the confidence of all our allies?” Biden continued.

The vice president said he isn’t sure if Trump is playing politics or if the billionaire is ignorant about the issue. 

“I don’t know whether he just doesn’t know. I know I get criticized for saying this. He just may not be informed enough to know what he’s saying. It’s just — some of it is so out-of-the-box, John, so far out-of-the-box. It’s hard to believe that he could be so devoid of the facts. So it’s either deliberate attempt to undermine, or it is totally uninformed.”