Trump Says Russians Couldn’t Have Influenced ‘Landslide’ Win

President-elect Donald Trump said foreign governments or other parties may have tried to influence the election through hacking, but it didn’t affect the results, a view that may put him at odds with several leading lawmakers, including some Republicans.

“We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College,” Trump told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

Trump’s margin in the Electoral College, 306 to 232, was smaller than that amassed by President Barack Obama in his 2008 and 2012 wins.

Trump said the intelligence community is split on whether Russia or other governments were the sources behind leaked e-mails involving Hillary Clinton before the election, and that Democratic lawmakers were trying to use information from private CIA briefings to discredit his victory.

“Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting,” Trump said in his first appearance on a Sunday talk show since the election. “Once they hack, if you don’t catch them in the act you’re not going to catch them. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. I mean, they have no idea.”

“Personally, it could be Russia. It -- I don’t really think it is, but who knows? I don’t know either. They don’t know and I don’t know,” he added.

Senators Alarmed

Four senators on Sunday issued a joint statement raising the level about reported Russian interference in the U.S. electoral process. The Washington Post reported Dec. 9 that said intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks.

“For years, foreign adversaries have directed cyberattacks at America’s physical, economic, and military infrastructure, while stealing our intellectual property. Now our democratic institutions have been targeted. Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American,” said Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, both Democrats, along with John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

“We are committed to working in this bipartisan manner, and we will seek to unify our colleagues around the goal of investigating and stopping the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security,” the senators said in their statement.

Trump, in the interview broadcast on Sunday, discussed his appointments to the Cabinet, which he said aren’t aimed at tearing down Obama’s legacy on issues such as the environment. z

He expressed his desire to prevent former government officials from making money in the private sector on the policies they implemented or contracts they approved while working for federal agencies.

Trump said he’s “very, very close” to naming his secretary of state, though he declined to say whether he would select Exxon Mobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson, who’s emerged as the front-runner and whom Trump called “a world-class player.”

“To me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players, and he knows them well,” Trump said. “He does massive deals in Russia. He does massive deals for the company -- not for himself -- for the company.”