Trump downplays Chinese election interference five days after describing breach of historic proportions

By Kevin Liptak, CNN

(CNN) — Five days after blaming China for “the largest compromise of election data in history,” President Donald Trump shrugged off Beijing’s actions and said the United States was doing the same thing.

Trump said vaguely on Tuesday that the US would discuss the matter with Chinese officials. But he previewed no punishment and claimed the alleged breach was in the rearview mirror.

“It took place a long time ago. I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then,” he said, despite his accusation last week during a primetime speech that China had illicitly acquired 220 million US voter files starting in 2020 and that the “data loss presents an unprecedented election security nightmare.”

Trump on Tuesday then said the alleged infringement was no different from US actions against China.

“They do things and we do things to them,” he said. “I’ll be honest, we do things to them too. It’s not a one-way street.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that he did not discuss the topic of election interference with his Chinese counterpart at an ASEAN conference in the Philippines.

“We talked a lot about the visit in September. That was really the gist of it, is just to create the groundwork for another positive visit. I think President Xi will have a very positive visit when he comes to Washington,” Rubio said.

“These are the two most powerful countries in the world, particularly economics, but also I mean we have to have a relationship, and obviously there are areas of great differences,” he said, adding later that there were areas of “potential cooperation.”

Rubio later specified that the president’s speech alleging China interfered in US elections last week was “a declassification of documents from our intelligence community. That’s what he put out.”

A day after Trump’s speech, a White House official said planning was continuing apace for President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States in September.

The White House did not respond when asked whether Trump was considering any repercussions for China, including sanctions.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Lauren Chadwick contributed to this report.