Booker: ‘Shameful’ Trump acting like he’s ‘guilty of something’
NEWARK — Sen. Cory Booker said Monday that President Donald Trump is acting like a person who “is guilty of something,” after Trump sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies which concluded Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
“Not only is his behavior shameful, but his behavior is also indicative of somebody who has something to hide, or is guilty of something,” Booker (D-N.J.) said at an unrelated event in Newark.
During a press conference earlier in the day in Helsinki, Finland, Trump made a series of remarkable statements as he stood alongside Putin, including one stating that he does not “see any reason” why Russia would have hacked Democratic computer servers.
Trump and Putin met for a one-on-one meeting just days after special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russians over allegations of involvement in a state-ordered election-interference operation.
Trump, during the press conference, repeatedly attacked the FBI, praised Putin as a “good competitor,” refused to say Russia was accountable for any aspects of fraying U.S.-Russia relations, and attacked Mueller’s investigation as “a disaster for our country.”
Booker, along with Gov. Phil Murphy, had harsh words for the president after the event in Newark to promote a new federal tax incentive program that gives tax breaks for investments in low-income neighborhoods.
Booker, who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2020, said it was disgraceful that Trump “paled around” with Putin, a leader who has “attacked our nation.”
“This is not a person who should be validated, this is someone who should not be given equal footing with the president of the United States,” Booker said of Putin. “What this president has done is shameful, for him to deny this investigation, to me, seems self-serving.”
Murphy, a former U.S. Ambassador to Germany during the Obama administration, said Trump’s behavior over the last week has been “jaw dropping.”
“The attack on institutions which historically have been nonpartisan or bipartisan in terms of the support, is beyond reproach,” Murphy said. “We will pay a price for that, our country will pay a price for that, it just doesn’t need to be that way.”
In the past week, Trump castigated NATO allies in Belgium and called the European Union a “foe.”
The president’s remarks toward Putin and Russia, as well as his overall friendly tone, drew a swift rebuke not only from Democrats, but also from some Republicans who have otherwise defended the president.
In a statement issued Monday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that “the president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally” and that “there is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals.”