Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to "save face" by denying during his meeting with President Donald Trump that his country meddled in the 2016 election, but "everybody knows" that isn't true, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley says in an interview airing Sunday.
""I think President Putin did exactly what we thought he would do, which is to deny it," Haley told CNN's Dana Bash. "And they can't. They can't. Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections."
Haley said it's important to "step back" and look at what the United States wanted to happen.
"We got two very important leaders together and said, 'okay, it's time for them to meet,'' said Haley. The meeting was a long time coming, she continued, and when Trump meets with another nation's leader, "things do start to move."
Trump brought up the issue of election meddling right away, and for a reason, she continued.
"One, he wanted him to basically look him in the eye, let him know that, 'yes, we know you meddled in our elections, yes, we know you did it and cut it out,'" Haley said.
Even though Putin denied meddling, "everybody knows that they're not just meddling in the United States' elections, they're doing this across multiple continents and doing it in a way that they're trying to cause chaos within the countries," said Haley.
She said she thinks that it won't only be the United States telling Russia to "cut it out," but other leaders will follow now that Trump has confronted Putin.
Trump himself, however, has expressed some doubt on the issue, saying during a press conference in Poland on the day before meeting with Putin that Russia may have interfered with the election, but nobody can "be sure" other countries were not involved.
Haley told Bash that she'd have to ask Trump what he meant by the comments.
"Everybody is trying to nitpick what he says and what he doesn't, but talk is one thing, actions are another," she said. "He confronted President Putin, he made it the first thing he talked about, and we have to now see where it goes from here."
The full interview is scheduled to air at 9 a.m./ET Sunday on CNN.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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