Biden warns Russia, other foreign governments of swift retaliation for election interference

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday warned foreign governments — particularly Russia — that any entity found to meddle in the 2020 presidential election will face repercussions.

On Friday night, Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said security experts have told him that "the Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process." In a statement released Monday, Biden said the Trump administration is not doing enough to safeguard the election, and he is putting the Kremlin and other foreign governments "on notice," ABC News reports.

If elected, Biden said he will "treat foreign interference in our election as an adversarial act that significantly affects the relationship between the United States and the interfering nation's government. I will direct the U.S. intelligence community to report publicly and in a timely manner on any efforts by foreign governments that have interfered, or attempted to interfere, with U.S. elections."

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Biden said he would also direct his administration to "leverage all appropriate instruments of national power and make full use of my executive authority to impose substantial and lasting costs on state perpetrators," which could include "financial-sector sanctions, asset freezes, cyber responses, and the exposure of corruption." He doesn't want to escalate tensions between the United States and any foreign country, but if one "recklessly chooses to interfere in our democracy," Biden said as president he will "not hesitate to impose substantial and lasting costs."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.