Rep. Jackie Speier (D., Calif.) recommended the United States issue "strong-worded comments" to Russia if it hacked the Democratic National Committee’s emails, leading MSNBC host Chris Jansing to say that is precisely the kind of weak response Donald Trump would hammer on the campaign trail.
The Hillary Clinton campaign has already said circumstantial evidence exists that the Russians are abetting Trump’s presidential hopes, citing the hack that revealed party favoritism for Clinton and ultimately led DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) to resign. Speier said she did not think there was any question the Russians were behind the cyberattack.
"What do we do about it?" Jansing asked.
"Well, I think there’s going to have to be strong-worded comments to Russia, much like we do with economic espionage that goes on with China," Speier said.
"I think that’s the kind of thing that Donald Trump would say we aren’t being aggressive enough," Jansing said. "A strongly worded comment, a warning, is not the kind of president I would be, and I think that’s part of what resonates with a certain part of the population."
Speier asked what "tougher" meant in those circumstances, wondering if that meant withdrawing U.S. personnel from the consulate in Russia or having an altercation in Ukraine.
"We have to be prudent about how we move forward," she said. "Russia gets its hands slapped frequently by us. They are desperate to see us have NATO become disengaged, and I think that NATO is a strong component of what we need to be doing in the future."