Pompeo says the U.S. is ready for election hack in 2020
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joins Bret Baier on 'Special Report' to discuss Trump administration's preparations for 2020 election security.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States stands ready to defend itself against attempts to interfere in the 2020 elections, during an interview with Bret Baier Thursday.
"The entire United States government is focused not only on preventing Russia from interfering but Iran, North Korea, China -- anybody who wants to mess with American elections. The American people should know that this administration is incredibly focused on it. I only wish the previous one had been," he said during an interview that aired on "Special Report."
Pompeo claimed the Trump administration has significantly reduced Russia's ability to meddle in America's election affairs, and cited the 2018 midterms as an example, before accusing the Obama administration of not being sufficiently vigilant on the issue.
"I don't know that we'll achieve perfection but take a look, there's been an election after 2016. We had one in 2018 as well," he said. "The Russians had the intent to mess around in that as well, and we were pretty effective. We certainly had safe and secure elections. And we reduced the Russians' capacity to have an impact on that election."
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Pompeo reiterated the government's commitment to maintaining election integrity and said President Trump is intent on seeing the policy through to fruition.
"The president's been very clear to me, both in my role as director of the CIA and as Secretary of State, that he wants to make sure that we have free and fair elections here," he said.