Trump backtracks on cyber unit with Russia after harsh criticism

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday backtracked on his push for a cyber security unit with Russia, tweeting that he did not think it could happen, hours after his proposal was harshly criticized by Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted.

Trump said on Twitter early on Sunday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Friday forming “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to address issues like the risk of cyber meddling in elections.

The idea appeared to be a political non-starter. It was immediately scorned by several of Trump’s fellow Republicans, who questioned why the United States would work with Russia after Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

“It’s not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it’s pretty close,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

Ash Carter, who was U.S. defense secretary until the end of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration in January, told CNN flatly: “This is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary.”

Trump’s advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, had recently sought to explain Trump’s cyber push.

Mnuchin said on Saturday that Trump and Putin had agreed to create “a cyber unit to make sure that there was absolutely no interference whatsoever, that they would work on cyber security together.”

But Trump returned to Twitter on Sunday to play down the idea, which arose at his talks with Putin at a summit of the Group of 20 nations in Hamburg, Germany.

Source: Trump backtracks on cyber unit with Russia after harsh criticism | Reuters