President Obama had his final press conference of 2016 today — Donald Trump, by c
ontrast, hasn’t had one in 140 days — and it was some pretty tough talk about Russian election hacking and other topics.
President Barack Obama said evidence of political hacking stopped after he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “there were going to be serious consequences if he didn’t” end the cyberintrusions in the United States. Obama said he met with Putin in September on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in China. Obama said he insisted Putin “cut it out.”
Obama also said that:
Naming Russia as the culprit behind the hacking of Democratic emails “requires us not to re-litigate the election, it requires us not to point fingers, it requires us to just say, here’s what happened, let’s be honest about it, and let’s not use it as a political football but let’s figure out how to prevent it from happening in the future.”
“Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave” over the recent GOP praise of Russia. The President attacked Republicans for siding with an arch-enemy of the United States because of their dislike of Democrats.
His transitional conversations with President-elect Donald Trump “have been cordial as opposed to defensive in any way.” There is no “squabbling” between the incoming and outgoing administrations.
The Syrian regime, along with Moscow and Tehran, are responsible for the slaughter of civilians in Aleppo. “We have seen a deliberate strategy of surrounding, besieging and starving innocent civilians,” Obama said. “The blood for these atrocities is on their hands.”
Hillary Clinton was “treated unfairly” in the presidential contest. “I think the coverage of her and the issues was troubling.”