James G. Stavridis Quotes

Any country needs to know that there are consequences when they get involved in our elections. And I think that's why it's good that the investigations are going on and we're analyzing and we're looking into all of that, and I think we need to manage it accordingly.

We must hit them hard for interfering with our election, If we do not hit the Russians hard, we will be empowering them .... 2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress.

Americans cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Russian interference in our democracy. We need to get to the facts and learn lessons to prevent future misconduct by foreign governments.

Mr. Obama said that he personally told Mr. Putin to knock it off and vows to retaliate. But the Obama presidency is coming to an end, and his successor still won't accept that Russia is guilty of tampering with U.S. elections.

There should be a response, clearly, if there was meddling. And it does appear that there was some, and therefore, we perhaps should wait for our own investigation by Mr. Mueller to continue and to come to a conclusion before we begin to take steps regarding the Russians.

There's been a deliberate and systematic effort to convey to countries around the world, friends and foes, that if they cross the United States there's a price to pay.

The Russians hacked into the Illinois State Board of Elections. They got into the database.

What is the point in punishing a country?

Enforcement is a very important part of the administration strategy. We think that even our friendly nations should live by the rules, and if they don't, we will intend to enforce things against them.

The United States Cyber Command was created partly in response to a Russian hacking attack that long predated the 2016 election.

Politicians often call for sanctions as a way of sounding tough when they don't want to take riskier measures.

The United States does not accept foreign meddling in our elections, and we shouldn't have an ambassador attempting to intrude in another country's political affairs.

I'm worried about privacy issues, I'm worried about Russian attacks. They literally, if you if you look at what their insidious aims are - to divide this country, is to make us hate each other, to make us not to trust media.

Despite the intelligence community's assessment that Russia interfered in our presidential election, President Donald Trump and Republican leadership seem wholly uninterested in examining how and why Russia targeted us - and what we must do to prevent it from happening again.

I think that Russian meddling in the election is an important issue.

We do need to get to the bottom of what Russia did and their interference in the election. And we need to also figure out how the Obama administration failed so miserably to allow Russia to have this type of impact in our country.

I think there was certainly contact between the Trump campaign and Russians, which is perfectly normal. All campaigns in the modern age have contact with representatives of foreign governments.

When I see something like Russian intelligence services interfering with our electoral process, I find that incredibly offensive.

I think it's important for people to believe their elections are on the up and up and they aren't being tampered with by anyone, and in this particular instance there's a large body of evidence that at a minimum Russia tried to tamper with our election.

Russia may very well be front and center again in 2020 as they were in 2016 regarding interference in America's presidential election. But the Trump administration is seeking to use its power of diplomacy to bring other countries into the act as well.

There have been a lot of questions since the 2016 U.S. election about Russian interference in the electoral process.

I'm talking about the finding in October that is public now of 17 different intelligence agencies saying Russia tried to meddle with our elections.

We know for a fact the Russians tried to change the outcome of our election, attacking the very fundamental of democracy. We know they did that. We need to know how, we need to know why, and most of all we need to know what to do to prevent this kind of activity, which they continue to carry on in free nations around the world.

We have to remember that at the center of all of this is the hacking, is what the Russians did during our election process, their absolute targeting our democracy. And there's President Donald Trump laughing with them. Sergey Lavrov said they did not talk about the charges against Russia. And you still hear President Trump talking as if this may not be true, others may have hacked, as well.

A lot of people think Barack Obama should have responded to the Russian hacking of the U.S. elections weeks ago, months ago. So these happened on his watch. There's nothing wrong with him dealing with it.