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Earlier in the day, Putin said he would not expel American diplomats from Russia
Zeldin said it "makes by far the most amount of sense" that Russia is responsible for the hacking
Russian President Vladimir Putin is “outsmarting” President Barack Obama in his response to US sanctions in the wake of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin said Friday.
Earlier in the day, Putin said he would not expel American diplomats from Russia despite calls to do so from top Russian officials.
Zeldin, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “OutFront” that the back and forth between the two countries is “like a complicated inside baseball game.”
“I do believe Putin is outsmarting President Obama with his response. He’s been allowed to take the high road, be magnanimous. It’s unfortunate. Now, we need to move forward,” Zeldin said.
However, Zeldin would not say that he supported President-elect Donald Trump’s tweet praising Putin for delaying a response to the sanctions.
“I am no fan of Vladimir Putin. I think he looks in the mirror and he aspires to be Vladimir the Great. He’d love to put the USSR back together again,” Zeldin said.
Zeldin said it “makes by far the most amount of sense” that Russia is responsible for the hacking, but that the intelligence report on the hacking does not answer all of his questions. He said the report was very brief and “used large font and big pictures with a lot of holes in it.”
The congressman said he is hoping Obama can answer all of his questions when he provides members of Congress with additional intelligence on the hacking.
Trump should keep the new sanctions imposed by Obama “if he can use these sanctions, leverage it as part of a bigger plan that we are moving in the right direction and we are realigning things around the map back to the way they are supposed to be,” Zeldin said.
“But again, this needs to be part of a larger plan and not one step at a time,” he added.