President Barack Obama said Friday in his final press conference of the year that Ronald Reagan would “roll over in his grave” if he knew how many Republican voters supported Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“How did that happen? It happened in part because for too long, everything that happens in this town and everything that’s said is seen through the lens of does this help us or hurt us relative to Democrats or relative to President Obama. And, unless that changes, we are going to continue to be vulnerable to foreign influence because we lost track on what it is that we are about and what we stand for.,” Obama said.
Since news broke that Russia directly influenced and hacked the DNC in order to sway the election for Donald Trump, some Republicans have shrugged. Obama said Friday that was because partisanship in the U.S. has begun outweighing unity against foreign powers trying to influence our elections.
“You start to see certain folks in the Republican Party and the Republican Voters sudden finding a government and individuals who stand contrary to everything that we stand for as being okay because that’s how much we dislike Democrats,” Obama said.
The president cited a poll showing that 37 percent of Republican voters approved of Putin.
Obama warned that something needed to change.
“If we want to really reduce influence for our elections, we better think about how to make sure that our political process and political dialogue is stronger than it is been,” Obama said.
