President Obama Says He Told Putin: ‘Cut It Out’ on Hacking

President Barack Obama said that he refrained from taking aggressive public action in retaliation for Russian hacking of Democratic Party institutions before the presidential election because he was concerned that such moves might be interpreted as unfair meddling in the campaign. In a news conference before leaving for a two-week vacation in Hawaii, President Obama said that he told President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in September to “cut it out,” but that the United States government did not retaliate in a public way before the Nov. 8 election. “We did not,” he told reporters. “And the reason we did not was because in this hyperpartisan atmosphere, at a time when my primary concern was making sure that the integrity of the election process was not in any way damaged,” such a move would “immediately be seen through a partisan lens.”

President Obama lamented the powerful effect that fake news had on the 2016 presidential election, condemning "domestic propagandists." “If fake news released by foreign government is almost identical to reports that are issued through partisan news venues,” he said, “then it's not surprising that that foreign propaganda will have a greater effect, because it doesn't seem that farfetched.”