"... We had much better defenses," President Donald Trump said of why alleged Russian efforts to hack the Republican National Committee failed. | Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo Trump: DNC 'should be ashamed' for Russian hack

President Donald Trump says the Democratic National Committee “should be ashamed” that Russian military officials hacked its network during the 2016 presidential campaign, bragging that Republicans had superior cybersecurity protection.

“The DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked. They had bad defenses, and they were able to be hacked,” Trump said in a CBS News interview with Jeff Glor, aired Sunday on "Face the Nation." “I heard they were trying to hack the Republicans, too. But, and this may be wrong, but they had much stronger defenses.”


Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Friday announced special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian military officers for the DNC breach.

“I heard that they were trying, or people were trying, to hack into the RNC, too. The Republican National Committee,” Trump said. “But we had much better defenses. I've been told that by a number of people. We had much better defenses, so they couldn't.”

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Trump, who is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, also repeated his claim that former President Barack Obama was to blame for Russia’s meddling in the presidential race.

“This was during the Obama administration. They were doing whatever it was during the Obama administration,” Trump said.

On Saturday, Trump posted a tweet accusing Obama of not executing further countermeasures against the Kremlin, "because he thought Crooked Hillary Clinton would win" the 2016 election.

“The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration,” the president wrote in another tweet. “Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?”