Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday that she owed Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) an apology for mocking his views on Russia during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Albright served as secretary of state during former President Bill Clinton's second term, from 1997 to 2001.

What's the story?

In 2012, then-presidential hopeful Romney, who was running against President Barack Obama, called Russia "without question" the "No. 1 geopolitical foe" of the United States.

During a televised presidential debate, Obama mockingly scoffed at Romney's assessment.

"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War's been over for 20 years." Obama added, "Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s."

Election 2012 | Obama to Romney: Cold War Is Over - Third Presidential Debate | The New York Times youtu.be

Albright said around this same time that Romney had "little understanding of what is actually going on in the 21st century." She called Romney's views on Russia "a 20th-century concept" and "a kind of one- or two-dimensional view."



Now, nearly seven years later, she's changed her tune.

During a House Intelligence Committee meeting on Tuesday, Albright said, "I personally owe an apology to now-Sen. Romney, because I think that we underestimated what was going on in Russia. I was on the CIA external advisory board. There was no question that less money was being put into Russian language and assessing what was going on in Russia."

Albright also said that the intelligence community "had forgotten we're dealing with a KGB agent."

TheBlaze has reached out to Obama's office for comment, but has not yet received a response.